


Two Households II: Two Weeks Over Easter

by mad_martha



Series: Two Households [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-04
Updated: 2011-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-20 03:00:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry spends Easter with his godparents and things become rather more exciting than any of them bargain for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the official sequel to "Two Households, Both Alike In Dignity". And there is a reason why this story has the title it does, as anyone who has read my Auror story "One Week In The Summer" will understand. I owe Madambeetroot a debt of thanks not only for reading and re-reading the early drafts of this story to madness point, but also for naming the church.
> 
> Author's personal disclaimer: To quote the wonderful Barbara Hambly: "It should be noted here that not all of the opinions expressed in this book are those of the author". They do, however, occasionally reflect things said to the author by people close to her. Make of that what you will.

**Part 1/11**

 

"Rough game," Sirius Black greeted his godson as the young man left the Slytherin changing rooms.  "Interesting result.  Nice catch though."

"It's okay, you can cheer Gryffindor's win if you want," Harry Potter replied dryly.

The doors opened behind him and his team-mates stalked out, all of them looking thoroughly grumpy.  Expressions grew even more sullen as they caught sight of their recalcitrant Seeker, and the look from captain Terence Higgs was even blacker, but none of them had the nerve to say anything in front of a witness.  They sloped off to their dorm in grim silence.  It was a far cry from the celebratory sounds coming from the Gryffindor team's changing rooms.

"That's friendly," Sirius observed.

"I'm a popular person," Harry deadpanned, then he lightened up a little.  "They're a bunch of prats.  Higgs seriously thought we could win when we were over two hundred points down and playing with only two Chasers and a reserve Beater.  I wasn't about to spend all night on the pitch in the hope that the Gryffindor Chasers would suddenly develop night-blindness or something.  I'd already flubbed the catch twice to give us more time.  Letting Creevey catch the Snitch instead would be adding insult to injury."

"I don't think it helped that your Beaters knocked each other out in the first hour," Sirius said, fighting a grin.

Harry rolled his eyes.  "I told Ron they would!  That's Crabbe and Goyle - they were Malfoy's muscle.  They have one brain cell between the two of them and most mornings one of them leaves it behind on the bathroom floor."

Sirius snorted a laugh.  "How the hell did they end up on the team?"

"Malfoy Senior bought them a place, probably," Harry said cynically.  "Any decent captain would get rid of them, but Higgs is pathetic.  It's a miracle we ever win."

Sirius clapped his godson on the shoulder.  "Well, you put up a good fight.  Do you want to get something to eat before we set off?"

Harry hesitated, but shook his head.  "We're going to get home late anyway, aren't we?"

"The game ran on longer than I expected," Sirius admitted.  "If you can wait, there's a cauldron of soup on the stove at home."

"I'll get my stuff," the youth decided.  "I packed earlier - it won't take me five minutes."

He led the way down to the dungeons and left Sirius outside Slytherin while he went in to collect his trunk.  There was no sign of any of his team-mates as he passed through the common room, but he was just collecting his flying cloak from the dormitory when Professor Snape surprised him by entering the room.

"Mr. Potter."

"Professor."  Harry looked at him warily, wondering what he had done now.

"Oblige me, Potter, by explaining your performance out on the pitch this afternoon," the Potions Master said curtly.

His expression was cool and distantly irritated, but at least he wasn't sneering – yet – and Harry supposed that was the most he could hope for from this man. 

"We weren't going to win, sir," he said, trying to keep his own voice as level and uncaring as his House Head's.  "I deliberately missed the catch twice to try and give us more time, but we were falling more and more behind.  In the end I thought it was better to catch the Snitch than to let the Gryffindor Seeker get it."

"You seem to have very decided ideas for someone who is a mere player in the wider team."

Snape had a very mellow voice, even when he was being at his most cutting.  It was possible to listen to it and yet not hear what he was saying because the timbre and rhythm were so hypnotising.  Nevertheless, Harry caught an odd note in it.

Higgs had obviously been complaining about him.  More fool Higgs!  Snape disliked whiners even more than he disliked Harry's waywardness.

He allowed himself to shrug slightly.  "Yes, sir.  I like to win," he added, "but we weren't going to win today.  It would have been worse if Gryffindor had caught the Snitch."

"I see.  Nevertheless, Potter, you should take care to be more of a team player.  No team can have two captains."

That was an odd sort of thing for Snape to say.  On the other hand, Harry reflected darkly, the Slytherin Quidditch team had been flying with two captains for some time now.  It wasn't like Malfoy had ever had any concept of teamwork.  He hadn't got away with it in the early days, when Marcus Flint had been captain, but Higgs had been too interested in Malfoy's status and money to upbraid him.

Annoyance coloured Snape's tone as he continued impatiently, "Learn to treat Higgs and his ilk with a little more respect!  Humbling yourself now hurts nothing but your idiot pride and situations can change with remarkable rapidity.  _Learn the waiting game_ , Potter.  Impatience is for fools.  That is all I have to say."

And with a swirl of black robes he was gone.

 

*

 

Sirius was talking to Ron Weasley when Harry emerged with his trunk.  The Gryffindor was still wearing his Quidditch gear and looked decidedly rumpled from the extended game, but his face was pink and cheerful.  Tucked into the crook of his right arm was his Kneazle kitten, Rosebud.  She was fast asleep; exhausted, no doubt, from having spent the entire match howling at the players from the safety of Hermione Granger's lap.

"You're off then?" he said, when he saw Harry.  "I've decided to go home too.  Mum's making a bit of a fuss so I'm catching the train tonight."

He rolled his eyes, but Harry just grinned.  It was perfectly true that Mrs. Weasley had been putting pressure on Ron to go home and "recuperate" after his accident, but Harry strongly suspected that the redhead was also secretly looking forward to her undivided attention for once.  His brothers were all living away from home now and his sister was staying at Hogwarts for Easter to study for her upcoming OWLs; this was probably the first time in Ron's life that he would be the only child in the house.

"Yeah, you take it easy for a couple of weeks," he said solemnly.  "You wouldn't want to strain anything and have a relapse, would you?  Especially since you just spent eight hours straight on your broomstick.  Does she know about that, by the way?"

Ron grinned appreciatively.  "I had to bribe Ginny not to tell her."

"She'll find out anyway," Sirius put in, amused.  "Molly has her own sources of information."

"Oh well," was Ron's philosophical reply.  "I can always say I've got a bit of a headache - she won't yell at me then."

"I'll see you when we get back, then," Harry said after a pause.

"You'll probably see me in church on Easter Sunday.  Or you could owl me sometime."

"Okay."

Another pause.  Sirius drifted away to the bottom of the stairs, studiously pretending that he wasn't listening and trying hard to hide his amusement.  Harry rolled his eyes. 

"He thinks he's being subtle," he explained, just loudly enough that Sirius could hear him.

Ron sniggered.  He reached out and squeezed Harry's shoulder.  "See you, mate!  Have a good Easter."

"Yeah, you too."

 

*

 

It was an object with Harry to try and remain nonchalant around his godfather at all times, but he had to admit to himself that he was rather looking forward to the trip home, purely because they would be riding Sirius's infamous flying motorbike.  The machine had a long history.  According to Ron, there were photographs in the Gryffindor Common Room of Sirius riding it around the school grounds; he'd caused quite a stir when he turned up with it at the start of his final year.

Harry was still young enough – and a big enough flight-maniac – to debate with himself the chances of sneaking a solo ride on the bike when Sirius wasn't around over the holiday.  Apparently his expression wasn't quite as opaque as he would like, though, because when he looked up, Sirius was regarding him with a crooked grin.

"Don't even think about it until you have a licence!"

"Do you?" Harry challenged him.

"Yep.  I have a driving licence too."

Harry wondered what on earth Sirius would want a driving licence for.  Wizards did sometimes drive cars, of course – of a sort, anyway – but he couldn't imagine why they would need to, by and large.  Brooms, Apparition, portkeys and Floo travel were far more efficient.

"But aside from anything else," Sirius continued, as he tapped Harry's trunk with his wand and shrank it, "I wouldn't want to have to unravel you from the anti-theft charms."

Ah.  Harry's urge to "borrow" the bike suddenly withered. 

He helped Sirius to strap the miniaturised trunk on the carrier and waited until the older man had set the engine rumbling before hopping onto the back. 

"Get a good grip on me or the grab-rail," Sirius instructed him.  He flashed a grin over his shoulder.  "I can't manoeuvre fast enough on this to make a catch, so you don't want to fall off!"

Harry scoffed at this – like he would fall! – but gripped the grab-rail behind him tightly anyway.  He was half expecting a jolt or something when they took off, but in fact the motion was so smooth that he wasn't even aware they were in the air until they were several feet away from the tower.  Sirius circled around the castle, veering away from the Forbidden Forest, and went up a gear and suddenly they were flying through the cold night air at a steady cruising speed.

Without the extra noise of tires on tarmac, the bike was a surprisingly quiet ride.  After a half-hour or so of simply enjoying the flight, Harry cautiously let go of the grab-rail and leaned forward so that he could speak to Sirius.

"What happened to Remus today?"  He had invited both of his godparents to the Quidditch match, but received a brief, apologetic note from Lupin excusing himself.

"He wanted to come, but he managed to get a job last week and he couldn't afford to take the time off," Sirius replied.

"What kind of job?"  Harry knew that Lupin had enormous difficulty finding any kind of paid work.  The law was against werewolves in all sorts of insidious ways.

"Trapping magical vermin.  Jarveys, knarls and the like."  Sirius's tone clearly indicated his opinion of this.  He was angry and frustrated on his partner's behalf.  "He's canny.  He's set up a sideline as well – creative disposal of the bodies.  Mind you, it's not quite legal but there aren't many jobs that _are_ legal for him anymore."

"So what does he do with them?"

"Turns them into potion ingredients and sells them to dealers in Knockturn Alley."

"Creative" wasn't quite the word Harry would have chosen for that.  "Wouldn't it be better if he just sold them to the apothecaries in Diagon Alley?" he asked.

"It would, if he could.  You have to have a licence to supply, though, and Remus can't get one for the usual reason.  The shops in Knockturn Alley are willing to overlook that."

"He shouldn't have to," Harry muttered.  He knew Lupin well enough to know that while he would do it with a serene face, he wouldn't be happy about it.  He tried very hard to stay within the boundaries of the law, but the law didn't give him much help.

"Tell me about it."

The rest of the journey was completed more or less in silence, apart from the occasional remark by one of them.  Harry became conscious of a wish that he had at least swiped a sandwich from the supper tables before leaving; he hadn't eaten since lunch, and he hadn't eaten heavily even then because of the game straight after.

Eventually Sirius began a slow descent, though, until they landed with a gentle bump in a lane a couple of miles from their destination.

"Better to drive normally from here," he called over his shoulder to Harry, "but keep a sharp eye out for other traffic, because we're not wearing crash helmets."

Harry had never approached the house from the road before; he usually arrived via Floo from a point hidden near Kings Cross Station.  This area was heavily rural, full of enormous banks and hedges around lonely fields, and unexpected copses.  In the dark it was hard to see far ahead, but he knew that the house was situated in a clearing surrounded and hidden by trees.

He was just beginning to wonder how much further they had to go when Sirius suddenly took a turning into what looked like a five-bar gate.  They passed straight through it exactly as one did through the barrier into Platform Nice and Three-Quarters and emerged into an overgrown lane, very bumpy and uneven under the bike's wheels.  Five minutes later the sprawling frontage of an old country house loomed up out of the darkness.

They had arrived.  This was Black Manor and Harry's home for the past three years.

 

*

 

They didn't stop at the front door but drove straight around to the kitchen wing, where welcoming lights and a smiling Remus Lupin were waiting to greet them. 

The kitchen wing, along with the servants' quarters above and an odd, blocky kind of tower next to them, were the only parts of the house that were currently habitable.  The rest was in considerable disrepair and cordoned off with safety charms until Sirius had the time and means to sort it out.  He wasn't in any hurry.  Sirius wasn't at all fond of his ancestral home.

"Rough game?" Lupin asked cheerfully, as Harry dismounted. 

"It _did_ finish a bit late," Harry admitted.  He took his trunk from the carrier and Sirius drove the bike around the corner to the garage.

By the time he reappeared Harry had already inhaled his first bowl of soup and was dragging his Quidditch kit out of his restored trunk to put in the laundry; and Remus was teasing the details of both the game and Harry's last couple of weeks at school out of him.  As usual it was a lot like pulling teeth, for Harry had an ingrained habit of not telling either man anything and the new, more cordial atmosphere between them wouldn't change that overnight.  On the other hand, he _was_ talking to them and within minutes of arriving, which made a pleasant change.  He usually disappeared to his room as fast as he could.

"I sent Hedwig off this afternoon – did she arrive okay?" Harry was asking as Sirius walked in.

"Yes – she's up in your room," Lupin assured him.  "Sirius, that reminds me – you had an owl from Kingsley Shacklebolt earlier.  It's on the dresser."

Sirius stopped short with a groan.  "Don't tell me - he wants me to go into the office tomorrow."

"Probably.  Here, drink your tea first.  Harry, do you want any more soup?"

"Please ...."

"Have some bread with it this time ...."  Remus paused and peered at the loaf.  "It's a bit stale but you can always dunk it."  He hacked a chunk off and passed it to the teenager.

One of the things Harry had always liked about the household, regardless of his feelings towards his two godparents, was the ramshackle, bachelor air of it.  Things like slightly stale bread would never have been tolerated in his Muggle aunt and uncle's house, and the odd hours everyone kept and general disorganisation would have horrified them.  Everything was clean here, but it was rather untidy; the kitchen was probably the tidiest spot and even so stray oddities from elsewhere frequently seemed to find their way in to clutter up the table and dressers.  The sitting room was more like an out-of-control library, with books and magazines in haphazard piles around the chairs and coffee table, and even the staircase up to the bedrooms sported the odd pair of boots or spare cauldron full of logs on the risers.

In short, it was a house where two men and one teenaged boy lived ... and it showed.

By far the strangest thing, though – aside from Lupin's fruiting vine plant that hung from every corner of the ceiling like ivy – was the thing-that-was-not-a-tapestry that covered the expanse of wall along the landing halfway up the stairs.  Harry had only really become aware of it in the last eighteen months.  When he first arrived in the house, it was very definitely a tapestry and an ugly one at that.  But the Christmas before last he had noticed that it made his skin tingle if he accidentally brushed up against it, and during each successive visit he became more and more convinced that it wasn't a tapestry at all.

But it was only when he was following his charmed trunk up the stairs today that he realised he couldn't really see it anymore.  Instead, there was a tapestry-patterned shadow over the wall that did nothing to conceal a heavy door of old, blackened oak underneath.

"Oh!" 

"What's the matter?" Sirius called after him.

"It's ...."  Harry hesitated, reaching out to touch without thinking.  Oh, that was _weird_ ....  It actually felt like a thick heavy tapestry under his fingers.  "Is it an illusion?"

There was a startled pause, then Sirius was climbing the stairs to join him.  "How did you guess?"

"Well, I can see through it!" Harry told him dryly, recovering some of his poise.  "I never realised there was a door there."  He grinned, rather impressed as he probed the illusory hanging.  "That's really cool – I can see the handle, but I can't feel anything except cloth and the wall underneath ... or not underneath.  Whatever."

"Well, that's the point," Sirius told him mildly.  "This door leads directly into the main house.  It's charmed shut, but it's easier on everyone if we don't have to look at it all the time.  How long have you been able to see through the illusion?"

"Only today.  I mean, I knew it wasn't really a tapestry at Christmas, but I couldn't tell what it was."

"Hm."  Sirius took his wand out of his pocket and waved it in front of the door, and the tapestry was suddenly back.  "Better?"

"No."  Harry rubbed his arms reflexively at the strange static sensation of the illusion spell.  "It's making me itch."

"More to the point, the noise it's making will quickly drive _me_ up the wall," Lupin said firmly, coming to the bottom of the stairs.  "Some of us have sharp hearing, you know.  Take it down, Sirius."

"Yeah, it’s a bit pointless since I already know what's there," Harry added.

Sirius shrugged, but the illusion suddenly vanished and in its place was a very solid rope across the door with a sign saying "No Exit".

"I wouldn't try to open it, you know!" Harry told him irritably, then did a double take.  "No _exit?_ "

"It's not you I'm worried about," his godfather told him.  "It's the things on the other side trying to get through."

"Ha ha!  Very funny."

"I'm not joking.  Some of the things in there surprise even me, and I lived here for sixteen years."

Harry's eyes tracked to Lupin, for this seemed too much like a wind-up.  But the other man's face was completely serious.

"Okay," he sighed.  "I'm definitely too tired for this.  Explain in the morning."

"Harry, it's nearly one o'clock now.  I don't expect to see you before noon, all right?" Lupin told him kindly.

The teenager snorted his opinion of this, for he was always an early riser, but he turned and followed his trunk up the stairs.

 

*

 

"Could _you_ see through the illusion?" Sirius asked Lupin when the boy was gone.

"No, but I'm not a teenaged prodigy," his partner replied tiredly.  "Dumbledore _did_ warn us that Harry was developing in leaps and bounds."

"I know, but he always seems to be one leap ahead of us at the moment."

"At least he's talking to us," Lupin pointed out.  "It would have been worse if he'd spotted the door and decided to try it in a quiet moment, instead of just asking."

"True."  Sirius sighed, rubbing his eyes.  "Okay, I'd better talk to him about my father's peculiar little hobbies tomorrow, just in case he gets a yen to go exploring anyway.  And I suppose I can't put off dealing with the rest of the house for much longer, either, can I?"

Lupin took his elbow and steered him into the sitting room, where they both collapsed onto a sofa. 

"Has it occurred to you," he began, "that it might be a good idea to get Harry involved in the clean up?"

Sirius stared at him.  "No!  You know what lovely people my family were, Moony …."

"I know, but Dumbledore's already proposing extra-curricular study for Harry this summer and this could give him some good practical experience - under appropriate supervision, of course."

It was a little amusing to watch Sirius try and fail to think of good reasons why this shouldn't happen.

"He's too young," he said finally, and rather feebly.

"He'll be seventeen at the end of July," Lupin replied.

"Hm."

"And no one would know, from listening to you talk, that you're just embarrassed about your relatives."  Lupin chuckled at his partner's expression.  "Sirius, you've already broken the ice by telling Harry that they were Dark wizards and you ran away from home.  What do you think he's going to do when he sees what that really means?  He spent twelve years in the loving care of Petunia Dursley - I think Harry knows quite a lot about appalling families."

"Appalling Muggles are a whole different game of Quidditch from my parents' nasty little habits," Sirius retorted.

"Which will be good preparation for some of Voldemort's nasty little habits," Lupin insisted.  "Besides … if you can offer him a suitably intriguing programme of events for the summer break, it could stave off any ideas he has of leaving home in the short term."

There was a pause.

"You always did fight dirty," Sirius observed ruefully.  "Okay, it's an idea.  We're not going to try and deal with it between the three of us, though.  I'll ask around and see what favours I can call in."

"Good thinking," Lupin agreed mildly.  "And here's another good idea - go to bed, if you're planning to be up at some ungodly hour to meet Shacklebolt."

 **End Part 1/11**


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2/11**

Harry was awoken the next morning by an unsubtle peck on the ear; Hedwig, his owl, wanted to be let out.  He stumbled sleepily to the window and threw it open for her, then stayed there for a minute or two, letting the fresh breeze fan his face and wake him up.

It was a pleasant morning, but judging by the angle of the sun it probably wouldn't be morning for much longer.  Harry groaned and lurched towards the cupboard, looking for his towel and toiletries.

Twenty minutes later, showered and dressed, he wandered down the stairs and into the kitchen.  The house was quiet and when he looked Sirius's cloak was missing from its peg by the kitchen door.  Lupin didn't appear to be around either, but this wasn't particularly unusual; the wards around the house and grounds were formidable and Harry was almost as safe here as he was at Hogwarts.

He put the kettle on the stove to boil for tea and ventured into the larder to forage for breakfast.  He wasn't overly fond of wizard cornflakes (they came in a plain brown paper bag, but the cereal itself chirped advertisements as you chewed it) but it was the first thing he put his hand on.  He stolidly munched on a bowlful, ignoring the squeaky exhortations to eat Dr. Dejeuner's high fibre cereals regularly for the good of his digestion, and stared thoughtfully at the door on the landing.

It was the things on the other side Sirius worried about, was it?  That was nicely non-specific, but if Sirius was trying to give Harry the creeps, then he was out of luck.  Harry had considerable experience of things on the other side of doors - everything from magic mirrors and three-headed dogs to prophesies and various incarnations of Voldemort.  What could necessitate locked doors and an illusion spell?

He drank his tea and finished his cereal, and washed up the dishes.  Then he poured a second mug of tea and took it outside.  He had a fair idea where Lupin was; there were three old greenhouses in the grounds and his godfather had recently brought one of them back into use for the growing of herbs and vegetables.

Harry was interested to discover that Lupin had renovated at least part of one of the other greenhouses it to be a sort of workshop.  The older man looked up and smiled when Harry appeared at the door.

"Morning!"

"Morning.  I brought you some tea."

"Bless you."  Lupin wiped his hands on an old rag and accepted the mug gratefully.

Meanwhile, Harry was studying the trestle tables, racks and shelves with interest.  There was a sharp smell of blood and bile in the air, mixed with various strong-smelling salts and preserving fluids.  There was also a large quantity of small carcasses, bird, lizard and mammal, in varying stages of dismemberment.  It was pretty unpleasant, but six years of potions lessons with Professor Snape had given the teenager a strong stomach.  As a macabre counterpoint to the carnage, there was a wizard wireless standing on one of the shelves from which Celestina Warbeck warbled her latest chart-topper.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Processing, I think, would be the correct word," Lupin said.

"Sirius told me a bit about it," Harry observed.  "He said it was illegal."

"It is, but that's one of the hazards of being me, I'm afraid."

"It's not very fair." 

Actually, there were a great many aspects of wizard law that struck Harry as being grossly unfair, even by the standards he had been raised with, but Lupin's situation seemed to encapsulate the bigotry and illogic in a nutshell.

"Yes, well … nothing about being a werewolf is fair," Lupin replied, with a sigh.  "From the initial bite right through to the laws that govern our lives.  Although at least the poor soul who did this to me had an excuse for his behaviour.  You can't say that about the ones who write the legislation.  The best you can say is that they're motivated by blind fear, and personally I don't think that's a good way to make laws."

  He paused for a moment then, finishing his tea and watching the teenager over the rim of his mug.  Finally, he said, "Did Sirius tell you about the new Bill the Under-Minister is trying to push through the Council of Magical Law?"

Harry shook his head.

"Werewolves already have to be registered, but they want to magically tag us as well, now, and limit our movements to a certain area.  _A fixed limit surrounding the registered place of domicile_ I believe is the phrase being used.  It would effectively mean that I couldn't leave the grounds without setting off an alarm at the Ministry.  Sirius was livid when he found out," he added mildly.

Harry was appalled.  "But they can't do that!" he protested, and his godfather smiled wryly at him.

"Watch them, Harry.  Fudge has been forced to accept that Voldemort is on the move and this is one of his 'answers' to the problem.  Lock up all known Dark creatures and ensure they can't do anything remotely nefarious.  Like find honest work."  Lupin drained the mug and handed it back.  "I've accepted a lot of indignities as the inevitable result of my condition, but I won't submit to being tagged like a criminal.  I've registered my protest with the Wizengamot, but I doubt it'll make much difference.  Let's hope that Dumbledore has better luck."

He returned to his work bench and picked up a small knife with a curved blade.  Harry watched as he began to skin a Jarvey.

"What'll happen if you get caught doing this?" he asked after a while.

"I'll be fined, most likely.  The worst I'm doing is undercutting a few licensed traders."

"Do you want a hand?"

Lupin looked up and smiled.  "I'd love to say yes, but that would get me an additional charge of corrupting a minor, which would probably land me in Azkaban!  If you're looking for something to do, you could always strip the Puffapods in the other greenhouse for me.  They've been ready for harvest for a couple of days, but I've been trying to get this done first."

So Harry, not having anything better to do, stripped Puffapods and brooded darkly over the injustices perpetrated by the Ministry.  After a while Lupin joined him and they filled pail after pail with iridescent beans, which they carried through to the other greenhouse for packing.

"I'm selling most of these as well," Lupin commented, "but as seed stock to Professor Sprout.  Apparently her Puffapods got a blight last year and she wants to start again with an entirely unrelated batch."





"Could Sirius get into trouble for knowing that you're doing this?" Harry asked abruptly.

The older man hesitated. 

"Well, that's a bit of a grey area," he said carefully.  "As the law currently stands, married couples can't be made to bear witness against each other."

Harry straightened up so quickly that he almost bumped his head on a shelf.  "You're _married?_ "

"Not exactly," his godfather said, smiling at his expression.  "I keep forgetting you don't know these things!  We're handfasted, which is slightly different - it's a legal contract, but not magical like marriage.  Anyway, I don't believe the principle of a handfasted couple bearing witness against each other has ever been tested in a criminal case, so I'm hoping to avoid that just to be on the safe side."

"But what about when Sirius was sent to Azkaban?"

"Sirius didn't have a trial then," was the quiet reply.  "Martial law was in effect and Bartemius Crouch signed off the order in the Minister's name.  Don't think I wasn't harassed by the MLEs and Aurors anyway, though."

Harry brooded on this. 

"I didn't know that marriage was magically binding," he said eventually.

Lupin had rather expected Harry to ask more about Sirius's arrest, but he was familiar enough with the teenager's ways to know that the appearance of backing away from sensitive questions generally meant that he simply wanted more time to consider them privately. 

"A lot of wizard contracts are.  It makes them easier to enforce if there's the prospect of a Defaulters' Curse involved.  Of course, that doesn't really apply to Sirius and me."

"Why not?"

Lupin hesitated.  When Sirius had told him a few weeks before that he had told Harry about the two of them, he assumed his partner meant everything.  But upon further consideration, he realised that was rather unreasonable; aside from time constraints, there was such a thing as information overload.  The situation probably hadn't been conducive to telling Harry more than the bare facts, which by no means covered everything.

"You've studied werewolves already, haven't you?" he asked now.

"Yes ...."

"So you'll know that some of the mythology is a bit more than myth."

There was a long pause as the two of them began to weigh the beans on an ancient iron scale balance and fill small hemp bags with the exact measures.  Harry filled a bag and tied the neck with a length of raffia before saying with studied carelessness, "You mean the bit about mating for life, then?"

"That's right."  Lupin tied off his own bag and put it in a waiting crate.

"But Sirius isn't a werewolf."

"He doesn't have to be.  That's one of the quirks of the situation."

"Couldn't he just leave you, though?"

It was difficult to tell from Harry's voice precisely what he was thinking as he asked this, but Lupin had his own reasons for believing that the boy wasn't quite as hard-hearted as he liked to act and didn't let the question ruffle him.

"No – it's a little more complicated than that.  Trust me, we're both in this for life."

Harry appeared to contemplate this.  "That must have made things difficult for you when he was in Azkaban."

"That's an understatement," his godfather replied wryly.  He hoped Harry was never in a position to find out just how big an understatement.

"But on the other hand, it must make things less complicated?"

"In what way?"

"Well ..."  Harry chewed his lip for a moment, visibly trying to articulate his thoughts.  "Well, it's a done deal, isn't it?  It must take a lot of the relationship hassles out of life."

"Actually no, it doesn't.  If anything, it's very hard work."  Lupin shot a quick sideways glance at the boy.  "All relationships are hard work, mind you – if they're worth anything, that is.  But being stuck with each other permanently means we have to make that little bit more effort to avoid killing each other when we fall out.  Being bound together for life hasn't changed our personalities, after all, and we're both stroppy, stubborn gits."

Harry let out a snort of surprised laughter at this description.  "You?  Stroppy?"

"He's bloody stroppy around a full moon, hadn't you noticed?" Sirius's voice said cheerfully from the doorway.  He was leaning against the lintel casually, but it was his appearance that made the other two stare.  He looked like he'd been in a fight; his clothes were dishevelled and covered in soot and his robe in particular had a large burn down one sleeve, and he had a bloody scrape all down the left side of his face.  And his eyes and grin were almost manically bright, which Lupin had associated for years with Sirius enjoying a wild tussle with someone.

"What the hell happened to you?" he demanded.

"They tried to resist arrest," Sirius explained, and it was clear that nothing could have made him happier.

"Who?" Harry wanted to know.

"A couple of amateur Death Eater types.  Kids' stuff really - almost boring."  Sirius looked at them.  "And while I was out battling evil, what was happening around here?"

"I embalmed a few dead rodents and Harry harvested the Puffapods," Lupin told him blandly.

"Good to know you're both living life in the fast lane," Sirius noted.

"Blink and you'll miss us," Lupin agreed gravely.

This had the appearance of a private joke of some kind and Harry, watching them, began to feel awkward.  It was one thing to know in the abstract that they were … whatever … but quite another to actually confront the matter head on.  He turned back to the bench and began weighing beans again, praying that he wouldn't do anything stupid like drop things and reveal his embarrassment.

Then he remembered that there was something he'd been meaning to ask, and forgot his discomforts. 

"Sirius, what's behind that door that you don't want me to see?"

Sirius raised a brow at him, not nearly as taken by surprise as Harry had hoped for.

"Other than a bunch of plug-ugly portraits of my ancestors?" he asked casually.  "It's not that I don't want you to see what's there - "

"Not exactly, anyway," Lupin murmured.

Sirius shot him a repressing look and turned back to his godson.  "I'm more concerned about the risk," he continued.  "Aside from the floors and ceilings being a bit rickety, my family weren't very nice people and there's some dangerous stuff in that part of the house."

Harry frowned.  "You said "things" on the other side of the door, though."

"Yeah …."  Sirius scratched his jaw doubtfully, glancing at Lupin.  But his partner was busy tying up little bags of beans and avoided his eyes.  "The thing is, Harry, my old man was a nasty piece of work in his own right.  He was a Master of Animation and making a suit of armour serve cocktails was a very minor party piece in his repertoire.  There are all sorts of little toys and experiments running loose in the main part of the house and some of them are a lot more dangerous than you might think."

Harry was interested.  "I can do animation," he said.  "I scared Dudley when we were kids by making his teddy bear climb the banister rails, although I didn't know then how I did it."

"It's something very few wizards have a natural gift for," Lupin put in calmly, "and because it's relatively rare, it hasn't been taught as a separate subject at Hogwarts for decades.  Even as a branch of Charms it isn't taught at the higher levels."

"The thing is," Sirius continued, "that like a lot of the more specialised subjects, it always used to be accepted that it would be taught separately post-Hogwarts, by a Master.  Specialist teaching was a big thing in the old days.  An exceptional student with a particular talent would be apprenticed to a Master  of that discipline who never had more than half a dozen students at a time.  The only problem was that if you got a corrupt Master, you could end up either being indoctrinated into his warped world-view or used for his nefarious purposes.  Voldemort is a classic example of that kind of teacher - many of the older Death Eaters apprenticed themselves to him to learn so-called "esoterica".  For _that_ read "Dark Arts".  And my father was that kind of Wizard-Master.  That's why I never studied animation - I knew the kind of person he was and frankly I didn't fancy my chances."

Harry digested this, but it was clear that it was the idea of animation as a subject that interested him.  "I don't need a wand to make things move."

"Neither do I," Sirius said calmly, although Harry's statement disturbed him more than he let on.  "It's one of the things that marks us out as natural animators." 

He reached out and touched a small hand-held gardening fork with a fingertip; it shivered and suddenly jumped to attention, performing a creaky little tap-dance around the work-bench for a moment or two.  Lupin captured it before it could leap from the bench and hung it back on its peg, looking as though this kind of thing happened all the time.

"That's how I enchanted my bike to fly," Sirius added.  "That's minor stuff - Nimbus teach a variation to their apprentice broomwrights.  But there are other, less savoury reasons why Animation isn't taught at Hogwarts."

Harry looked from one to the other of them, his expression slipping into wariness.  "It's a Dark Art, then?"

"No!" Lupin said at once, looking up.  "Pure Animation has a very respectable history.  Honestly, Sirius, I swear you can make a melodrama out of a tea party."

"Hey, that's my job.  And there's _nothing_ harmless about tea parties – remember my Great Aunt Ethelreda and the cupcakes?"

"Sirius _…._   Harry, _any_ branch of magic can be used in a Dark way.  The Darks Arts are only so called because they make a specific study of subverting ordinary magic."

"Moony took optional studies in Ethics of Magic," Sirius commented to his godson, amused, but Lupin ignored him.

"There are branches of almost every subject that are … dubious, for want of a better term.  Animating a teapot so that it pours by itself or a soft toy to walk around and play with a child is Animation in its purest, most basic form.  But what about animating a door knocker to swear at someone who isn't welcome?  Or a rug to bite an intruder?  And from there it branches out even further.  Would you animate a corpse?"

"Who would want to do that?" demanded Harry, revolted.

"Voldemort," Sirius said dryly.

"And what Sirius hasn't got around to telling you yet is that while his father was a noted Master of Animation, his mother was known - in certain circles - to have a gift for Necromancy," Lupin added.

"So what you're saying is that there are dead things walking around in the rest of the house."

"Not _dead_ things, no," Sirius said, wincing, "at least, not so far as we were able to ascertain when I first came back here after my trial.  But some of the things running around aren't quite as inanimate as I would like.  My parents were great experimenters.  Oh, and as I said - there are some seriously ugly portraits of my ancestors in there and none of them are very sweet-tempered."

"Although none of them are quite as bad as that picture of your mother in Grimmauld Place," Lupin observed, referring to the other Black residence – a town house in London that Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix was currently using as its headquarters.  He caught Harry's questioning look and clarified: "She screams.  Constantly.  And she uses the most appalling language."

"Usually when she sees me," Sirius added, grimly humorous.  "Although she had a few choice names for you too, when we were last there."

"You shouldn't have told her about us, should you?  Of course she took it badly – you're the last male heir of your family."

"Sorry," Sirius said unrepentantly.  "I just couldn't resist pointing out that she was nothing but a footnote in wizarding history – her and her precious Regulus."

He turned on his heel abruptly and stalked away to the house.  Harry stared after him, a little nonplussed.

"Sirius didn't always get along with his brother," Lupin said softly, looking at him sideways as he continued to measure out beans.  "Especially as they got older, and after he left home."

"Sounds like he didn't get along with _any_ of his family."

"Well ... not his immediate family, certainly.  Regulus was always being thrown in his face as the family paragon – he was their mother's favourite.  When he went to Hogwarts he was Sorted into Slytherin and he and his cronies took every opportunity to needle Sirius.  I'm not saying that Padfoot was entirely blameless, mind you, but it was asking a lot to expect him to take that kind of thing lying down."

Things Harry had heard about his father and his friends over the years inclined him to think that the needling had not been at all one-sided but he made no comment, choosing instead to ask about something else that had caught his attention.

"You said that Sirius is the last male heir of his family."

Lupin nodded.  "The last to hold the name Black anyway."

"Is that important?" Harry asked curiously.

"That depends on how you feel about preservation of the pureblood family lines," his godfather said dryly.  "The Blacks can trace their line back to the early Middle Ages.  It would certainly be a shame if the name ended with him.  But what do _you_ think?"

"Me?"  The teenager was taken by surprise.

"Yes, you.  I can't really be a judge – my family may be pureblooded, but like the Weasleys the Lupins aren't among the foremost families in wizarding Britain.  You're the last of the Potters, though, and that's a very ancient and well-respected name.  How do you feel about that?"

"But I'm not a pureblood," Harry retorted, recovering himself.

"Does that matter to you?"  When Harry seemed disinclined to answer this question, Lupin shrugged.  "It shouldn't, you know.  I realise you probably get a lot of propaganda rammed down your throat in Slytherin, but what they're not telling you is that wizards as a race would have died out in Britain hundreds of years ago if we hadn't interbred with Muggles.  There aren't enough of us even now, and some of the first families are hanging on by a thread.  The Malfoys are a case in point – the family has run to nothing but single sons for the last five or six generations."

"Malfoy used to talk about how marrying Muggles bred magic out of wizard families," Harry said warily.

"Claptrap," said Lupin, briskly.  "How does he explain your mother, then?  Never a hint of magic in her family before, but she was one of the most promising witches of our generation.  Magic isn't reliant on wizard bloodlines, Harry, and it's no guarantee either.  There are occasional squibs in the purest of the first families, much as they hate to admit it."

There was a long, quiet space as Lupin weighed out beans and Harry tied off the bags.  Harry was definitely brooding and the older man let him get on with it.  Finally, as they were packing the crate with the last batch, he said, "It's not as though Sirius can do anything about his family name dying out, is it?"

Lupin raised his brows, even though he had been expecting this question.  "Of course he can."

Harry looked at him, confused and just a little shocked.  "But – "

"And I've already told him I think he should.  After all, in wizard terms he's still a young man.  There's no reason at all why he shouldn't have children."

Lupin waited for Harry to digest this, before adding gently, "And you should bear that in mind yourself, when you're older."

 

*

 

When he came to think about it, it wasn't the idea of Lupin urging Sirius to have a family independently of their relationship that bothered Harry (although that was difficult enough to chew on).  It was more the part about Sirius still being "a young man in wizard terms".

The question of ageing was something that had privately worried Harry for some time, especially since he had discovered that Dumbledore, for example, was well over a hundred years old.  Wizards lived for a very long time.

Or some wizards did, anyway. 

If asked, Harry would have rejected with great violence any suggestion that he ever gave what Draco Malfoy said any credence.  But it would have been a lie.  For all that he had learned to grow a very thick skin in Slytherin, some comments nevertheless managed to work their way under his defences to fester like neglected splinters.

And there had been a conversation in the Slytherin Common Room once – which Harry had undoubtedly been meant to overhear – where Draco had enumerated, for the benefit of  Pansy Parkinson and a few other Slytherin girls, the reasons why pureblooded wizards should not interbreed with Muggles, mudbloods and halflings.  One of those reasons had been that mudbloods and half-bloods didn't live as long as true wizards.  Indeed, said Malfoy, some of them didn't even live as long as most Muggles – something to do with magic sometimes interfering with Muggle-type brain patterns or causing cardiac weaknesses.

At the time Harry had told himself very firmly to ignore the malicious little shrimp.  After all, whether his statements had been made for Harry's benefit or not, it wasn't as if Malfoy even knew there was a dividing line between truth and fiction.  It was just one more thing said to get under Harry's skin and what the hell did Draco Malfoy know about cardiac weaknesses anyway?

But in the way of such things, he remembered this conversation against his will and every so often it reared up in his subconscious, giving him some moments of unpleasant anxiety.  And he hadn't felt able to ask anyone, even had there been anyone to ask.

Of course, he could just ask Lupin or Sirius now, but Harry had a sneaking suspicion that even if Malfoy's insinuations were true, they wouldn't necessary say so on account of not wanting to alarm him. 

Not having classes to go to was a mixed blessing.  Being at school at least gave Harry other things to focus upon until his overactive imagination found something else to obsess about.  When he and Lupin returned to the house, he rejected the offer of a late lunch in favour of going back to his room, flopping out on his bed and brooding.  Which was when his eye fell upon Hedwig, who was sitting on her perch and preening her feathers lazily.

He _did_ have someone he could ask, and he had the means of getting the question to him very easily. 

 

 **End Part 2/11**


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3/11**

"There's a meeting tonight," Sirius said, when Harry had disappeared upstairs.  He was leaning against the kitchen table, chewing unenthusiastically on a length of baguette smothered in butter.

Lupin, who had been in the process of putting the kettle on for another cup of tea, stopped and stared at him, dismayed.  "Tonight?  One of us will have to miss it, then, because we can hardly leave Harry on his own here - "

His partner shook his head impatiently.  "Dumbledore knows that.  Everyone's coming here – we just have to raise the wards for fifteen minutes between seven and quarter past."

"Hm.  I don't see how that's much better, considering that we have moody teenaged ears on the premises."

"I thought we'd got over that," Sirius said pensively, looking up towards the stairs at the end of the landing.

"He's sixteen, Padfoot," Lupin sighed.  "He won't get over it until he gets the maximum possible mileage out of it.  Besides, I think it's just come home to him that he left his latest love interest at Hogwarts for a fortnight."

"Actually, Ron's at home too.  I heard him tell Harry he'd given in to Molly's fussing and agreed to spend Easter at the Burrow for once."

"Which begs the question of what Molly and Arthur will do with him while they're here this evening."

That question was answered at seven o'clock, when Sirius raised the wards over the Floo and not only Arthur and Molly Weasley dropped into the grate, but their youngest son as well.  Ron was carrying a squalling Kneazle kitten under his faded sweatshirt; apparently Rosebud had not taken kindly to Floo travel.  Arthur was looking weary and Molly extremely cross.

" - Absolutely _no_ business travelling by Floo after a head injury, Arthur," she was saying as she stepped out of the fireplace.  She was obviously continuing an argument that had started before they set out.  "No _need_ to bring him here when Percy was happy to mind the house.  He should be sitting quietly at home with his brother ...."

"Molly, _dear_ , will you please – "

"Percy's lectures give me headaches, Mum!"

"Evening, Arthur!" Sirius said, grinning at the older man.

"Is it?" Arthur asked tiredly.  "It feels much later than that."

Lupin was quietly distracting Ron.  "Here," he said to the boy and thrust a huge plate of sandwiches at him.  "Harry's in his room – up the stairs at the end of the landing there, first door on the left, top of the tower.  I'm sure you could eat and he didn't have any dinner."

"Thanks," Ron said gratefully and he got a firm grip both on the plate and the kitten, who was trying to launch herself onto the top of the food.  "No, Rosebud!  Don't be greedy ...."  He hurried off up the stairs and a moment later could be heard yelling "Oi!  Potter!"

Molly did not look at all happy as Lupin took her cloak.

"I'm glad you brought him," he told her.  "Harry's been moping all afternoon."

But her look of vexation merely increased.

"I'll make some tea," Lupin said with a sigh.

 

*

 

"What kind of prat are you?" Ron demanded.  "Of course you're not going to die young – what evil-minded prick gave you that idea?  Or shouldn't I ask?"

He crammed half a cheese and pickle sandwich in his mouth and glared at Harry, who at least had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

"That's the kind of guff Voldemort likes to frighten people with," Ron added around his mouthful.  He swallowed and continued, "It's a lie, okay?  I asked Dad, just to be sure, but it's definitely a lie."

"Yeah, well it _sounded_ really convincing when Malfoy was saying it," Harry muttered.  He picked a sliver of ham out of his own sandwich and held it out to Rosebud, who delicately licked all the butter off it.

"That's what makes Voldemort so dangerous.  But you're a wizard, you've got magic and you'll live as long as the rest of us."

"If Voldemort doesn't get me with a well-placed curse first."

"Didn't work the last time he tried, did it?  Don't be such a pessimist."  Munching his second sandwich more slowly, Ron took a good look around at Harry's room.  "This is a bit of all right, isn't it?"

"I s'pose so."

"You're an ungrateful git too.  This is _brilliant_.  Walls are a bit bare, though, why don't you put some posters up or something?" 

"Don't mind me, you just say what you think," Harry said, beginning to feel a tickle of amusement.

"Don't worry, I will."  Ron continued to take in the circular room, with its pine furniture, four-poster bed, and soft furnishings in appropriate masculine shades.  He got up and went to peer out of one of the windows.  "This is a big house, isn't it?"

"Yeah.  We only live in this part, though.  The rest's dangerous."

"How's that then?"

So Harry told Ron what Sirius had told him earlier in the day.  To his increasing amusement, Ron seemed to view the prospect of screaming ancestral portraits and potentially lethal animated gadgets as a decided advantage.

"We've only got a boring old ghoul in the attic!" he said enthusiastically.  "You've probably even got _ghosts!_ "

"I know we have," Harry said dryly.  "One of Sirius's Seventeenth Century cousins keeps floating in when I'm undressing.  Nothing he says to her makes her stop."

That set the seal on Ron's satisfaction.  "Excellent!  Except for the pervy cousin, of course, but she probably has a thing about minding kids or something."

Harry gave him a Look.  "Ron, she was about fifteen when she died.  And she _giggles_."

He decided not to mention that Sirius thought it was funny.  Sirius wasn't the one being ogled while he was in a state of undress.

Ron sniggered.  "So why don't you give her a good look?  Might scare her off!"

"Thanks a bunch!  I'll remember that when she's hanging around the bathroom."

There was a pause.

"So what are they all gassing about downstairs anyway?" Ron asked finally.

Harry shrugged.  "Dunno.  I didn't even know there was a meeting till you turned up."

The redhead stared at him.  "How could you not know?"

"I've been up here most of the afternoon," muttered Harry, feeling foolish.

Ron snorted and rolled his eyes.  "Well, is there anywhere we can listen from?"

"Not without being seen ...."  Harry paused.  "Well – I don't know.  We could try the gallery, but it's right under the roof and it might be too far away to hear properly."

"Not a problem."  Ron grinned and pulled something out of his jeans pocket – a length of flesh-coloured string.  "I pinched this from Fred and George's old room at home.  Let's see if it still works."

What Harry called the "gallery" was a long attic room above Sirius and Remus's bedrooms.  It lay directly below the roof, with blackened rafters and no ceiling, and it was oddly low in height.  On one side of it was plain stone walling covered with old, mouldering pebbledash, and on the other it had thick wooden railings that looked out over the sitting room.

"We need to be really quiet," Harry warned Ron as they climbed the stairs to it.  "They'll be able to hear us if we make much noise."

Ron looked around, wide-eyed, as they crept across the floor and settled in a spot with a promising view of the gathering below.

"What is this place?" he whispered to Harry.

"Sirius said it was the House-elves' quarters.  The human servants had rooms underneath here."

"His family had _human_ servants?"  Ron seemed even more impressed by this than the mention of House-elves.  "Wow.  They must have been really rich."

Harry gave him a puzzled look but let it pass.  Ron was busy unrolling the length of string. 

"I could only find one," he was whispering, "so you'll have to lean as close to me as you can to hear it."

"What is it?"

"An Extendable Ear."

"A _what?_ "  Harry had to clap a hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh.

"You'll see." 

The length of string snaked out across the floor and through the railings, disappearing into the fronds of Lupin's vine.  Ron gestured for Harry to move closer and he put the end of the string up to his ear.

They had to lean close and literally press their ears together to hear anything.  Harry was very conscious that Ron radiated heat like the stove in the kitchen and smelled, over the usual boy-smell of sweat and dry grass, of chocolate and biscuits.  It was decidedly distracting.  Then he heard someone – a woman – speaking and everything else went out of his head.

"... happened to Malfoy's boy, Albus?"

"I have received a request from Igor Karkaroff to forward copies of Draco's records to him by September," Dumbledore's familiar voice replied.  "In the meantime, presumably Lucius will engage a private tutor for the summer term."

"Will Durmstrang take the kid after this?"  That was Sirius.

"Karkaroff has no reason not to.  Draco was only suspended, after all.  And I imagine Lucius will make it well worth his while to accept the boy, regardless of any doubts he might harbour."

"This is better than Draco being expelled," Lupin's voice said in a reasonable tone.  "He still has a chance while he's at Durmstrang, but making him an outcast in the community would leave him with nothing but desperate choices.  Remember that Voldemort doesn't care if his recruits are accepted by the mainstream of our society or not."

"Quite," Dumbledore agreed.  "There is little more we can do for Draco at this stage."

Harry twitched irritably.  Why was everyone so concerned about that conniving little creep?  As far as he was concerned, the only problem with Durmstrang was that it wasn't far enough away.

"Instead, Sirius, Remus, we will need to discuss Harry's future shortly."

Both boys froze.

"We've had some thoughts about that already," said Lupin.

"Good.  But I think we should discuss that at a more seasonable moment, when our other business here is completed and," Dumbledore's tone became rather dry and pointed, "when unauthorised ears are not listening in."

Harry and Ron jerked backwards, staring at the string in Ron's hand.  Ron's eyes were wide with alarm.

 _How did he know?_ he mouthed, but Harry shook his head.

Discomfited, they withdrew the Extendable Ear and crept out of the gallery, returning to Harry's room.  There they found Rosebud curled up in the middle of the sandwich plate, her little stomach bulging with the leftover scraps she had consumed.

"Honestly, Rosebud, you're a real gannet," Ron told her.  He picked her up, brushing breadcrumbs out of her fur, and tucked her up against his chest.  "Don't blame me if all that bread gives you colic."  He looked at Harry.  "So.  What do you reckon?"

"What?  About the bit where they're going to plan my future for me while I'm not around to interfere?"  Harry began to pace the floor, his skin crawling with irritation.  "You know, I'll be seventeen in July.  I've a bloody good mind to grab my stuff and bugger off."

"You haven't taken your NEWTs yet," Ron pointed out.

"So?  Your brothers didn't, did they?"  This was a reference to Fred and George who had suddenly decided, in the middle of their final year, to quit Hogwarts and open their joke shop in Diagon Alley.  "Besides, it's not like I need a job.  Mum and Dad left me a small fortune."

"Do you have unrestricted access to it?"  Ron was eyeing him warily.

Harry paused, looking blank.  Sirius had never limited him but –  "But if I'm of age ...?"

"Depends on what the terms of your Mum and Dad's wills were, I suppose.  If they set an age limit on you touching the capital ...."

"How do you know about this stuff?"  Harry was momentarily diverted.

Ron shrugged.  "Bill works for Gringotts."

There was a pause.

"I don't know," Harry admitted.  "I've never seen their wills."  And in the mood he was currently in, he was inclined to see this too as a gross injustice, even though it had never even occurred to him to ask before now.

"Well you might want to check on that, or you could end up with egg on your face," Ron replied dryly.

Harry sat down on the end of the bed, looking fed up.  "Sometimes it feels like everyone's got me, coming or going," he complained.  "If it's not Sirius, it's Dumbledore.  And if it's not Dumbledore, it's Voldemort.  I have no life of my own."

Ron bit his lip.  "Reckon it would have been any different if your Mum and Dad were still alive?"

Harry shook his head.  "I don't know," he muttered.  "I try not to think about that.  But sometimes I think it would have been better if I'd been born a squib."

"It wouldn't," Ron told him, a little grimly.  "If you'd been a squib, Voldemort would have done for us all sixteen years ago."

"I s'pose so.  Sorry."

"Nah, it's all right.  I feel like chucking it all in too, sometimes.  Mum's driving me nuts at the moment - I don't know why I said I'd come home for the holiday."

There was a long, companionable pause.  Then Harry sighed and looked at Ron.

"Want to have a look around the garden before it gets too dark?"

"Go on, then."

They stopped off in the kitchen to collect a lamp, and both tried to look nonchalant when Sirius suddenly appeared to make tea for the meeting.  He only grinned at them, though, and advised Harry not to go outside the wards.

"Like I would," Harry grumbled, when the kitchen door was shut behind them.  "He always says that, just because I did once when I first came to live here."

"Did anything happen?"

Ron could have sworn Harry blushed, but it was hard to tell in the fading light. 

"Well …."  Harry mumbled something.

"What was that?"

"I said I sort of got attacked by a Lethifold, okay?"

Ron stared at him and let out a sudden snort of laughter.  "Bloody hell, Harry, you must have a target on your back or something!  How many people get attacked by Lethifolds in _this_ country?"

"Very funny."  Harry was not amused.

"But how did you manage that?  I mean, aside from being native to hot countries, they look like a _rug_.  It's not like you're going to just trip over one in the woods and not think it's a bit strange that there's a rug lying there."

"Look, I went swimming in the stream and when I came back it was pretending to be my robe!  I'd never even _heard_ of Lethifolds before then!"

"Okay, okay!" Ron tried to smother his laughter with only partial success.  "So how did you get out of that one?"

"I breached the wards when I went near the stream and Sirius came charging up just in time."  Harry sounded thoroughly annoyed now.  "He yelled at me, but I didn't even know the wards were there!  And nobody bothered to tell me there were rug-monsters in the woods either, so how was I supposed to know?"

Ron finally realised that he'd touched a nerve - although with Harry it was sometimes hard to tell where one sore nerve ended and the next one began.  (And people said _he_ was touchy.)  "You really don't get along with him, do you?"

One shoulder lifted in an irritable shrug.  "Just when I think he's okay after all, he does something completely git-ish.  Like arranging the rest of my life for me."

"It was probably just fright that made him yell," Ron offered pacifically.  He wasn't sure he wanted to touch on the issue of people arranging Harry's life for him.  "Mum did the same when I fell off Charlie's broom when I was four."

"That was what Remus said."  A reluctant grin curved Harry's lips.  " _After_ he yelled at Sirius for yelling at me."

The path they were following suddenly emerged around the side of the house into the kitchen garden, nor far from the greenhouses.

"Crikey," Ron said, staring.  "This place must be _huge_."

"It's too big," Harry said, skirting around Remus's vegetable patch.  "It takes an army of House-elves to run it properly, according to Sirius."

"Don't tell Hermione that - she's got a thing about the enslavement of House-elves.  And did you say they even had _human_ servants?"

"Some, I think.  Why?"

Ron stared.  "Do you have any idea how much money you need to hire real people to work for you?  More than one or two House-elves is unusual, but human servants cost a fortune to hire.  Only squibs will do it - most witches and wizards would never dream of working as a servant for someone else."

"Sirius's family _were_ very rich," Harry said, shrugging.  "But look at the size of the gardens.  There's no way we can keep them tidy, and I think half the reason Sirius doesn't want to try and fix the rest of the house is because we could never maintain it."

They continued along the path.  It was getting darker, so Harry dug a box of Muggle matches out of his pocket and lit the lamp. 

"Sirius keeps his bike in the old coach-house along here," he commented.  "Want to take a look?  It's full of these funny old carriages …."

The coach-house amused Ron greatly.  As Harry said, it was full of quaint carriages and things that looked like early motor-cars but had odd devices attached where the engines should be.  There were two cobwebby sleds (which Ron, an arachnophobe, refused point blank to investigate further) and a small boat stowed in the rafters.  And to one side, in a carefully cleared space, was Sirius's motorbike.  Ron wandered over to look, eyeing it wistfully.

"It's no good," Harry said regretfully.  "It's covered in anti-theft charms."

Ron glanced at him and laughed.  "Have you tried to nick it, then?"

"No, but I thought about it!"

"What's behind that door there?"

Harry looked up.  "What - the one behind that pumpkin carriage?  That leads to the old bath-house."

"A _bath-house?_ "  Ron blinked.  "Wow.  That's very … um …."

"Roman," Harry supplied with a grin.  "It is, too.  Hot plunge, cold plunge, tepidarium and steam room - the lot.  It doesn't work anymore, though.  Come on, I'll show you.  I don't think it's warded, unless something collapsed since Christmas."

He edged around the enormous Cinderella carriage and tried the door.  It opened easily under his hand.

"Brilliant!  Come on … but mind where you put your feet."

Harry was right.  It looked just like a miniature Roman bath-house, with its marble walls and mosaic floor, although it was in a very poor repair and the walls were covered in creeping plants and mosses.

"Sirius says it hasn't worked properly since his grandfather died," Harry explained, his voice echoing a little.  "The heating and water were controlled by magic, and nobody but Mercurius Black really understood how to work it.  Mind the broken tiles here ….  Now, what do you think of this?  This is the steam room."

"Oh … my … God!"  Ron stared in awe at the walls revealed by Harry's upheld lamp. 

Harry chuckled.

The walls were covered in a mosaic mural, a traditional classical scene with Greek-style figures and a variety of creatures all cavorting wildly.  The portly, bearded chap in the middle of the main wall opposite the door, hugging his wine amphora with a drunken leer, was probably the most innocent of the bunch.  The rest depicted a deranged orgy of the most extraordinary kind.  Ron nearly went cross-eyed trying to work out what was going on with the two girls and the octopus, not to mention the -

 _"Harry!  Where are you?"_

"That's Remus," Harry said with a sigh.  "Come on, we'd better go."

"Just another minute," Ron protested.  "I'm trying to work out - "

 _"Ron?  Ronald!"_

"That's your mum.  Besides, it's no good.  I've seen that one a dozen times and I still can't work out where the goat-legs come from."

"Oh, all right.  But I wish I could get some photos to show Seamus and Dean.  Why doesn't it move?"

"Remus put an immobilising charm on it," Harry explained.  "He said it was bad enough that Sirius had shown it to me at all, without letting me watch them all at it."

Ron sniggered as they emerged from the coach-house again.

His parents were waiting for them when they walked into the kitchen, Mrs. Weasley looking red-faced and very cross.

"Where on earth have you been?" she demanded.  "Look at you!  You're covered in dust!  And it's dark out there, anything could have attacked you in that garden - "

"Unlikely, Molly," Lupin intervened, his tone very dry.  "The wards on the grounds here are nearly as strong as at Hogwarts.  They have to be."  He looked at Harry and smiled slightly.  "Let me guess - the bath-house?"

"And the coach-house."

"But mostly the bath-house, I'm sure!"

"It's a brilliant mural," Ron said, grinning at the older man.

"It was better when it moved," remarked Sirius, appearing in the doorway to the living room and grinning back at the two boys.

"Sirius!" Lupin scolded him.

Mrs. Weasley's eyes narrowed suspiciously.  "What kind of mural?" she demanded.

"Time's going on, Arthur," Lupin said hastily.  "We'll need to put the wards back in place on the Floo in a minute, so …."

Fortunately Mr. Weasley got the idea and quickly urged his wife into the grate.  Ron and Rosebud followed them, Ron giving Harry a wry grin for his mother's behaviour.

"Owl me!" he said, as he took Floo powder from the jar Sirius was holding out.

"Okay."

When he was gone (Rosebud leaving a lingering howl of indignation in the chimney breast), Harry turned back to his guardians to see them exchanging an odd look.

"What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Lupin told him calmly.  "Only that the pair of you will be the death of me.  God help you if Molly Weasley finds out the true nature of that mural, Harry!"

Harry grinned.  "Why?  It's educational."

"Speaking of which," Sirius put in, "can we have a word, Harry?"

Harry's good humour vanished like a dropped Galleon and he eyed the two men suspiciously.  "We?"

"Me.  Remus.  Professor Dumbledore."

"Actually I was planning on having an early night …."

"Not one of your better excuses," Sirius told him.

Harry glared.  "Give me a minute and I'll think of something else!"

This promising start to an argument was interrupted by someone gently clearing his throat.  Dumbledore stood in the living room doorway, observing the three of them over the top of his spectacles.

"Gentlemen," he said mildly.  "Harry, please join us.  This won't take more than twenty minutes of your time."

Harry fumed. 

"What do you need me for?" he demanded, but the angry question was thrown - as always - at Sirius, not Dumbledore.  "Can't you sort my life out for me without my juvenile interference?"

Lupin winced, but for once Sirius resolutely kept his mouth shut.  It was Dumbledore who replied, looking mildly apologetic.

"You know, my boy, it has truly been said that by eavesdropping one may hear no good of oneself."

"And by _not_ eavesdropping, one hears nothing at all!" Harry retorted.

At this the twinkle reappeared in the professor's eyes.  "Very true!"  He stepped to one side and gestured to the living room.  "If you please?"

Harry hesitated.  He hated backing down.  "Ten minutes."

The twinkle became more pronounced.  "Fifteen."

The teenager took his time considering the offer, and Lupin had to direct his very best glare at his partner to prevent him commenting on it.

"Oh, all right," Harry sighed and he followed Dumbledore into the living room.

Sirius had to take a moment or two before he followed them.  He let out a long breath and gave Lupin a very speaking look.

"Bite your tongue," the other man advised him softly.

"I'll have no tongue left by the end of the holiday!"

 **End Part 3/11**


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4/11**

"Permit me to clarify one point straight away," Dumbledore said to Harry when they were all seated.  "My choice of words earlier may have been somewhat infelicitous.  I can assure you, Harry, that none of us are trying to arrange your future for you.  That would be a gross impertinence and in any case quite impossible.  Your life, when you come of age, will be your own to decide."

Harry's expression suggested that he didn't entirely believe this but was polite enough not to say so.

"Your safety, however, is a matter of great concern to us," the professor continued after a moment.  "Ultimately, no one can prevent you leaving the shelter of Sirius and Remus's home when you attain your majority in July, but it would be very hard for us to give you the same level of protection outside of this house or the school."

Lupin, who was watching Harry very closely, was disappointed to see the boy adopting his most uncooperative expression. 

"I haven't asked anyone to protect me," Harry pointed out.

Dumbledore hesitated.  Still watching the boy, Lupin had to admit that Sirius had some justification for his continual frustration with their ward.  That look of cool interest was terribly provoking, when he knew only too well what Harry was as good as daring them all to say.

The wizarding world had a vested interest in keeping Harry Potter alive: A prophecy made before his birth suggested that he was their only hope of destroying Lord Voldemort permanently.  Putting that into words to someone as cynical and suspicious as Harry was asking for trouble, though.

Dumbledore chose a blunter route.  "I should not have to remind you that Lord Voldemort wants you dead, Harry.  He has means to achieve that goal above and beyond anything I or anyone else is capable of, and the moment you choose to sever domestic ties with Sirius and Remus you will be placed in terrible danger."

Harry shrugged, leaning back in his chair.  "So?  Isn't that _my_ problem?"

Sirius made a sudden uncontrollable movement but - incredibly for one of his temperament - he managed to keep himself in check and say nothing.

"We don't want you to die, Harry," Lupin told him levelly.

"Well, no," the teenager agreed affably.  "It _would_ be rather inconvenient, wouldn't it?"

Sirius's control slipped.  "I suppose it would be pointless to suggest that we prefer you alive because we love you and care what happens to you!"

"Pretty pointless," was the cool retort.  "To be honest, it doesn't stand up very well against the _other_ reason for keeping me alive.  Does it?"

"Love was a good enough reason for your mother to give her life for you," Dumbledore reminded him, and he met the sudden furious glare of those green eyes with unimpaired calm.  "That love saved your life on more than one occasion."

"That particular bit of protection is long gone," said Harry curtly, "and so is my mother.  Besides, if Voldemort's close enough to touch me these days, then he's too close, and all the love in the world won't save me."

"While you live with us, he can't cross the wards onto my land," Sirius said.  It sounded like he was forcing the words through gritted teeth.

Harry snorted.  "Do you want to lay any sizeable bets on that?  He crossed the wards into Hogwarts during my first year!  Besides, all that does is make you and Remus even bigger targets than you already are.  Have you stopped to think that I might not _want_ you to be put at risk because of me?"

"But why would you care?" Lupin put in dryly before Sirius could respond to this.  He raised a brow at the teenager's sharp look.  "Surely that's as irrational as Sirius and me caring what happens to _you_?"

"Perhaps, given that five of Harry's fifteen minutes are already up, we should argue the merits of sentiment on another occasion," Dumbledore suggested.  "Harry, to return to my original point, we have grave concerns regarding your future safety and we have discussed at considerable length what measures we might possibly take to meet some of those concerns.  As it has rightly been pointed out, we have no control over your movements after July.  Therefore our conclusions might best be couched in terms of a proposal to you which you may accept or decline as you see fit.  All I would ask is that you give it sober consideration before making a decision."

Harry folded his arms and looked politely interested.  "Okay."

"Thank you." 

And how Dumbledore managed to make those two words sound like genuine courtesy rather than sarcasm mystified even Lupin.  But everyone seemed to relax a little now that the point of the conversation had been reached.

"Very well," the professor said calmly.  "This is the situation as we see it.  You are currently doing extremely well in your studies and should you continue to perform to the same high level during your final twelve months at school - presuming, of course, that you decide to return for your final year - then your professors inform me that you should attain outstanding marks in each of the NEWTs you have chosen to sit. 

"That said, twelve months is a significant period.  You have displayed outstanding ability in several areas, most notably Charms, Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts, but whilst it is possible for talented students to pursue their interest in some subjects through extracurricular study groups, this is not the case with Defence Against the Dark Arts.  Both the Ministry of Magic and the International Board of Magical Examiners frown upon study of this subject outside of formal lessons – "

"What about Dumbledore's Army?" Harry interrupted, raising his brows.

Dumbledore hesitated, giving him a thoughtful look over the top of his half-moon spectacles for a moment.  "Miss Granger's Defence Association was officially closed down by Profession Umbridge during her tenure as Headmistress last year," he said finally.  "The group of students involved now operate as an extension of the Advanced Charms Group under the aegis of Professor Flitwick.  I believe you are not a member?"

Harry smiled crookedly.  "Never been invited to join."

"A pity.  Manifestly you of all people are a candidate for such extra study.  Regardless of your NEWT course, you need every moment of extra study in Defence that we can possibly give you.  You also need to familiarise yourself with some subjects outside of the normal curriculum.  You already have some familiarity with Occlumency and Legilimency, but Sirius reminds me that you are also a natural Animator and certainly Animation could be a useful subject for you to pursue."

Dumbledore stopped there and looked at Lupin, who took up the thread.

"What we're proposing is that you should get extra training throughout the summer holiday - initially at Hogwarts, where it won't matter that you're still underage for the first few weeks, and then here with myself, Sirius and other selected people in a practical exercise."

His interest was no longer merely polite; at the mention of Animation lessons and the "practical exercise", Harry definitely perked up.

"What kind of practical exercise?" he asked.

"Clearing the main part of the house and making it safe, primarily," Sirius replied.  "I wasn't joking when I said how dangerous it is.  One of the reasons I've put off dealing with it so far is because of the risks involved.  I don't want just one or two of us going in there and trying to disarm my mother's booby-traps.  It needs a team of skilled people."

"Sirius's parents fitted the profile of many of the older, more prominent Death Eaters who follow Voldemort now," Lupin added.  "Lucius Malfoy for example.  They were trained in the old way, focussing on narrow but experimental fields of magical study, with a very traditional and insular mental outlook.  You can learn a lot from studying how they lived and worked.  Your background, living for so long among Muggles, is both an advantage and a disadvantage to you, Harry - your Muggle experience will be invaluable as a means of making you an unpredictable target, but you also need to be more familiar with the traditional wizard culture in order to anticipate how your enemies will behave.  Sirius is ideally placed to help you there."

"As is Severus Snape," put in Dumbledore.

Lupin inclined his head.  "Severus is the epitome of a traditionally trained wizard."

Sirius shifted irritably at this description of his old nemesis.  "The actual details of how we tackle the problem of the house will be settled when I have a better idea of who'll be helping us out," he said in continuation, "but Professor Dumbledore and I feel that parts of the building could be put to good use by the Order of the Phoenix, so in all likelihood it'll be a variety of people from the Order as and when they can safely spare the time.  Again, that's good for you because you'll be able to work with a variety of witches and wizards with a broad range of skills."

"And you will familiarise yourself with key members of the Order," Dumbledore added, looking at Harry over his spectacles.  "Which will be helpful to you later on, whether you decide to stay among us or not."

If Harry took note of this gentle hint, he showed no sign of it.  "What about the training at Hogwarts?"

"Primarily we would focus upon pure Defence," the professor said.  "Specifically duelling, which is extremely popular with Voldemort and his followers, as you know.  Because of the limitations the Ministry places upon us, we would have to rotate teachers, but myself and Professor Snape would take the bulk of the task upon ourselves.  However, Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Chief Auror, has been asked by the Minister to review the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts over this summer, which is most fortunate as he is a member of the Order and an expert in defensive duelling.  And Remus has taught Defence before, of course.  In other areas, Professor Flitwick has expressed considerable pleasure in the prospect of teaching pure Animation once more.  He is a Master Animator himself but scope for teaching the subject has dwindled due to a lack of students with the aptitude."

A reluctant grin dawned on Harry's face.  "So you only want to take up part of my holiday," he joked.  "A few days here and there.  Nothing major."

"Well, we wouldn't want you to think we're not taking you seriously," Sirius said blandly.

"Hm."  But the boy didn't seem to take offence at this.

"So that is a crude outline, at least," Professor Dumbledore concluded.  "I don't expect an answer from you immediately, Harry, so take a little time to consider the matter and perhaps you will let us have your decision by the end of the Easter holiday.  Hm?"

"Okay," Harry agreed.

"Excellent."  Dumbledore fished out his pocket watch and looked at it.  "And that, I believe, is our allotted fifteen minutes!  Might I trouble you gentlemen for another cup of tea before I return to Hogwarts?"

 

*

 

Harry took himself off to bed almost immediately, leaving the three adults to recover from the conversation.  Sirius in particular was nearly climbing the walls with aggravation.  Dumbledore observed him with amusement.

"That went rather better than I expected!" he said, and his eyes twinkled at Sirius's incredulous look.  "My dear boy, he was only so rude because he was angry – a typical teenaged reaction.  And perhaps we should be thankful he was forewarned.  Caught by surprise, I'm sure he would have been far less amenable."

"Whereas it just looked as thought we were setting up an ambush for him," Lupin said wryly.  "How did he overhear anyway?  The acoustics in the gallery aren't that good."

The headmaster chuckled.  "An ingenious device created by Mr. Weasley's brothers, I suspect.  It matters not.  Harry's sense of curiosity is well-developed and I am sure _that_ , if nothing else, will lead him to accept our offer."

"And if it doesn't?" asked Sirius a little dryly.

"Then we must hope that he will at least decide to remain with you and in full-time education for another year.  That will give us time to … work upon him a little and see if we cannot bring him around.  But I suspect he will find a way to square this plan with his pride."

"After all, it's only for the summer," Lupin murmured, suddenly looking thoughtful.  "He's not exactly committing himself to anything permanent, is he?"

"Perhaps.  Tell me, what would you judge the state of his friendship with young Ronald to be?"

Sirius and Lupin looked at each other for a moment. 

"Just friends," the former replied finally.  "For the moment, at any rate.  He's a little twitchy around us, but not nearly as much as I expected."

"We had an interesting conversation about the nature of my relationship with Sirius earlier today, though," Lupin added.  "He wasn't giving anything away about himself, but he was showing ... intelligent interest.  I'd say there's more going on underneath than the pair of them are ready to deal with yet.  But if opposition is all that's needed to push them into making a move, then Molly will probably provide plenty.  She is _not_ happy about Ron associating with Harry.  Not at all."

"Yes, quite."  Dumbledore studied his teacup thoughtfully for a moment.  "Has it occurred to either of you that if Harry is to be encouraged to stay at Hogwarts, then Ron Weasley is your best ally?  I'm not suggesting you actually _ask_ him to help, but by encouraging their friendship you give Harry a motive to return to school."

"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Sirius.  "If he's keen on the kid, he's not going to put himself in a position where he's unlikely to see him for most of the year, is he?  Unless …."  He grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose.  "Unless he manages to convince Ron to quit school as well.  In which case, I need to make sure my will is up to date.  Molly will kill me."

"At this rate, she'll kill us anyway," Lupin said.  "She's not being very subtle about trying to keep Ron away from Harry and she made a comment just before they left which, quite frankly, took all of my self-control not to reply to pretty sharply.  Remarks about being attacked by _things in the dark_ are usually addressed to me.  Fortunately I think it went straight over their heads, but what is she _thinking_ , saying things like that to them?  Harry's hardly a rabid beast!"

"Molly must discover the hard way that her children will stretch their wings and fly the roost in their own time and manner," Dumbledore observed.  "Ron is seventeen and all but beyond her control.  And if he proves to be the best check we have upon Harry, then we must sacrifice Molly's feelings and make use of him."  He paused, and added, "It relieves my mind beyond measure that Harry has finally reached out to someone.  Solitude and introspection are not healthy for one of his temperament.

"And young Mr. Weasley is coming into his own at last, now that he is no longer in his brothers' shadows," he continued.  "He shows great promise – and signs of greater maturity than I expected of him.  Yes, he could exert a most beneficial influence upon Harry."

 

*

 

Restless after the conversation with the three adults, Harry prowled his room for a while before he remembered Ron's parting words and decided to write to him.  Setting things down on paper was surprisingly calming and gave clarity to his confused thoughts.  It was of immeasurable value to him to finally have someone he could tell these things to.

What Ron would make of it all he didn't know, but Harry – forced into independence for so long – was a little surprised at his own willingness to listen to the other boy's opinions.  He didn't always agree with him, of course, but hearing another perspective was interesting.

After he sent Hedwig off with the letter, he prowled again for a while before finally deciding to take a bath.  Maybe that would relax him.  The bathroom was in the base of the tower and, rather nicely, he didn't have to share it with Sirius and Remus (who had one of their own in their wing), so he could take as long as he liked.  A long soak was a luxury only prefects got at school, so this was a prized opportunity.

So Harry stretched out in the big claw-footed tub and let his mind road free of the usual restraints he kept upon it.  To his mild surprise, however, instead of dwelling on the discussion with his godparents and Dumbledore, he found himself going back to ... Ron.  To how much more natural the other boy looked in faded jeans, a worn sweatshirt and a robe that was a size too big for him.  To his underlying scent of chocolate and spiced biscuits, and the warmth radiating off him ....

Harry began to feel a little warm himself and he squirmed.  It wasn't the first time he'd felt an attraction to the other boy, but it was the first time it had manifested quite so physically.  On the other hand, what else were long soaks in the bathtub good for?

Accepting this with a light shrug, he lay back and indulged himself ....

 _"AAAARGH!"_

Good reflexes were priceless; he reacted before he fully realised who the intruder was and hurled a soaking wet sponge at them.  It went straight through her and hit the mirror opposite with a thud, making both the ghost and the mirror shriek.

 _"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY BATHROOM, YOU FILTHY LITTLE PERVERT!"_

Harry seized the soap, intending to throw that next, but Sirius's ancestress didn't wait; she fled, wailing, through the bolted door.

"Harry?"  Remus's startled voice said from outside.  "Are you all right?"

Harry swore.  Talk about killing a mood!  And he was fed up to his back teeth with that damn peeping-tom of a ghost watching him all the time.

Muttering angrily, he drained the bath, wrapped a towel around himself and stalked to the door, throwing it open.  Remus and Sirius were just outside, the latter remonstrating with the ghost who floated near the ceiling, sobbing melodramatically.

"Cousin Susannah, how many times have I told you not to spy on Harry?  People don't like being watched when they're bathing!"

" _Or_ getting dressed, _or_ sleeping, _or_ doing my homework, _or_ polishing my broom!" Harry roared, and blushed when he realised he'd inadvertently used a wizard euphemism for the very activity he'd just been engaged in.

Only a slight quiver in Sirius's voice betrayed his awareness of the slip.  "Harry, be fair – you're a good-looking young man and she's only fifteen."

"More like three-hundred and fifteen," Remus put in more sternly, just as Harry angrily said, "I don't care – she's a flippin' pervert!"

The ghost's sobs increased, but at the palpable lack of sympathy from her audience she presently gave up, sniffing and tossing her pearly ringlets sulkily.

"I shall tell!" she warned Harry and her girlish voice held an edge of petulance.  "I shall tell what wickedness thou wer't engaged in!"

"Go ahead!" Harry snapped, thoroughly provoked.  "They've probably guessed anyway!  And if you're such a prude, why were you even looking?"

She burst into tears again.  "Knave!  Wicked, unfeeling _monster_!"

That touched a nerve.

"Fine!  Here, take a good look since you're so interested!"  And Harry pulled the towel off. 

Cousin Susannah shrieked at the top of her voice and plunged through the nearest wall.  Her wails could be heard echoing in the distance.

There was a stunned pause, then Remus said a little shakily, "I – I think you can cover up now, Harry."

Still bristling with indignation, Harry dragged the towel around his hips again.

Sirius was struggling very hard not to laugh.  "Um ... you really have a way with women."

Pushed beyond tolerance, Harry favoured the older man with a tart opinion of his sense of humour and stormed off up the stairs to his room.  An echoing bang a moment later told them that he had slammed his door.

Sirius and Remus managed to make it to their own room before they gave way to their mirth.

 

*

 

Harry had half-hoped for a response from Ron by the time he returned to his room, but that was unreasonable and his rational mind knew it.  The Weasleys lived some distance away and Hedwig would probably overnight at the Burrow before returning in the morning.  Nevertheless, he did some grumpy pacing in front of the window for a while, before tiredness finally won out.

Discontented, he climbed into his big four-poster bed and blew his lamp out.  He didn't think he would sleep any time soon, but instead he dropped off at once ... and fell straight into a nightmare.

Nightmares were common ground for him.  The scar that connected him to Lord Voldemort was a two way channel that allowed the Dark wizard, if not to actually possess Harry these days, to send him weird visions and taunts whenever the young man's guard was low.  Harry was not yet skilled enough to return the favour, but on occasion the connection inadvertently allowed him to see details of whatever Voldemort was up to.

Tonight was not one of those times; tonight was one of Voldemort's little 'entertainment' sessions – dreams so foul and bizarre that Harry had the greatest difficulty steeling himself to relate them to Dumbledore.  Voldemort knew the mind of a young man and knew just how best to torment him.  Depravity was a speciality of his.

The worst of it was that Harry knew some of the images sent to him were not imaginary at all, but rather something Voldemort was watching and deliberately allowing him to witness.

It was for this reason, among others, that Dumbledore had insisted upon Harry learning Occlumency, in an attempt to close his mind to the Dark wizard's interference.  Harry had only had partial success with it.  Every night before he slept, he took measures to seal his mind to invasion, but when he was under stress and pressure of emotion it was always much harder.

Tonight he had been angry when he retired; and he had had an interesting day culminating in a discussion which had set his mind afroth with speculation.  Despite his best efforts to close his mind and calm himself before sleep, his guard was definitely down.

Harry was still young enough to be embarrassed (outside of his own peer-group, where such discomfort would be relieved with typical teenaged crudities) by even straightforward sex.  Blaise Zabini had once smuggled a wizard porn magazine into their dorm which had shown such a variety of extraordinary things that something inside fourteen-year-old Harry had nearly panicked and taken flight.  Nevertheless, he had remained curious enough to borrow the magazine and peruse it privately later. 

Witnessing a Death Eater orgy was almost enough to convince him that he wanted to be celibate for the rest of his life.

There were four – no, five – Muggle women in the room.  He thought they must be Muggles, anyway, judging by the glazed look of confusion on their faces.  He counted at least twelve masked Death Eaters, not including Voldemort himself.  More sickeningly, at least one of the Death Eaters was clearly a witch.

As to the room, Harry had no idea where it was other than that it appeared to have no windows and was probably bigger than he could see from his perspective.  It was elaborately dressed, like the set of a movie or the stage of a theatre, as though what was happening was being deliberately shown to a wider audience.

Nausea at what was being done to the women nearly suffocated Harry and he twisted desperately in his sleep, trying to extricate himself from Voldmort's cruelly amused grasp.  Finally, the sickness and the pain in his scar became too much; he managed to wrench himself free and awoke with a violent start, dripping with sweat, his scar nearly blinding him with pain.

He was going to be sick, he knew it, and he fell out of bed in his attempt to get to the bathroom below.  He crawled to the door on hands and knees and slid down the stone staircase on his rear, landing with a painful bump at the bottom.

It was no good.  He couldn't go any further.  The pain in his scar was now so extreme that he was close to passing out.  It wasn't a matter of getting to the bathroom before he threw up anymore; he needed help.  But to reach Sirius and Remus would mean crossing the landing and climbing another flight of stairs.  He didn't even have the strength to call out.

Harry sat on the floor at the foot of the stairs and wanted to weep.  Something was trickling down his face from his scar, something too thick and warm to be sweat, and it felt like his head would split open from the pain.

Something icy-cold brushed past his shoulder and when he squinted upwards there was a luminescent figure hanging in the air above him.  Bright eyes regarded him resentfully.

Harry could barely manage a whisper.  "Cousin Susannah ...."

"No cousin of yours, Halfling!"  The viciousness in the sweet voice was startling.  "What ails thee now, pray?  What - no insults?  How are the high and mighty fallen!"

"Susannah, I'm begging you ... please find Sirius ...."

"Best fetch thy owl to do thy bidding, Halfling.  I am no servant of thine!"

Harry gave up and let himself slide wholly to the cold stone floor.

How long he lay there he didn't know, but abruptly there was a faint light from a wand and voices.

"Oh my God – Harry!  Sirius – "

Hands gently turned him onto his back. 

"He's cold.  My God, Remus, his scar is _bleeding._ "

"Can you lift him?  My room is nearer and we can use the fireplace to contact Dumbledore ...."

Harry was only half aware of being lifted and carried to a room where he was placed very gently on a soft bed.  The rest of his mind was overwhelmed once more by the presence of someone no longer quite human, someone with a cold, high voice he hated with every fibre of his being ....

"Mcnair, you will dispose of the bodies ... this was well enough, I suppose, but I tire of these predictable Muggle creatures.  Where is the sport when they know nothing of what they fear?  Next time ... next time bring me worthwhile entertainment.  Something with a little fear and fight in it.  We mustn't let our youthful audience grow jaded too soon, must we?"

And Voldemort laughed, laughed fit to make the scar on Harry's forehead burst open.

 **End Part 4/11**


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5/11**

Harry awoke only enough over next few hours to be aware that someone sat by his side constantly, someone who gently bathed the painful wound on his forehead with cool, soothing liquid, gave him cold drinks to sip and calmed him when his restless dreams grew too agitated.  Other presences came and went without attracting his interest.

When he finally awoke enough to note his surroundings at all, it was to find an exhausted Sirius keeping vigil over his bedside.  The room was full of afternoon sunlight, but Harry had an almost immediate sense that he'd been there a lot longer than one day.

This was Remus's room.  He guessed that straight away from the slightly shabby furnishings, although he'd never actually been in there before.  There was a neatness about it that spoke of Remus's personality.  Harry was also conscious for the first time of a scent clinging to the room, particularly the sheets and blankets that covered him; it was Remus again, although he couldn't have said how he knew that, for he had never noticed it before.  The strange thing was that the scent was wholly different from anything else he had ever smelled.

"Why does he smell different?"

Sirius's head jerked up.  "Harry?"

He was on his feet and by the boy's side at once.  One hand went to check Harry's pulse; the other reached for a tall glass of lemonade on the bedside table.  Satisfied with the former, Sirius raised his shoulders a little and held the glass to his lips.  Harry drank gratefully.

"How do you feel?" he asked, when the boy had had enough.

"Like crap," Harry admitted.  "My scar feels weird ...."

Sirius quickly caught his hand before he could touch it.  "Let it be.  It's only just scabbed over."

"Did it bleed?"  That had happened once or twice before.

"A little.  Madam Pomfrey brought some ointment to use on it.  And some other potions."

Madam Pomfrey?  But Harry couldn't summon much interest.  It all seemed rather far away and irrelevant right now.

Sirius sat down carefully on the edge of the bed.  "What did you say about a smell?"

Harry remembered.  "Why does Remus smell different?"

"Does he?"

"Hm.  I never noticed before, but he doesn't smell like other people.  Is it because he's a werewolf?"

"Probably.  How could you tell?  I only notice when I'm Padfoot."

"I don't know.  I noticed when I woke up."  Harry didn't feel up to explaining that sometimes, after contact with Voldemort, some of his senses became more acute for a while.

"Does it bother you?"  There was an odd note in Sirius's voice.

"No - it's just different, that's all.  It's Remus."  Harry frowned suddenly, realising something.  "You smell different too.  But still the same."

"That's good to know."  Now there was an edge of humour in his godfather's voice.

Harry looked at him.  "Have I made a lot of trouble?"

"Never," Sirius said firmly.  "You just gave us one hell of a fright."

"Can I sit up?"

"So long as you promise you're not going to try and get out of bed at the first opportunity.  Snape came by and gave you a fairly strong potion to help you sleep earlier, and he says one of the side effects is temporary loss of co-ordination."

"Temporary?"  Harry didn't like the sound of that.

Sirius smiled.  "Relax, it's only for a few hours.  You'll be fine by the morning."

He helped Harry to sit up, propping him up on a mound of pillows.  Sitting up was better, but not by much.  Harry realised that he felt thoroughly lousy.  He also had a stack of questions he wanted to ask and couldn't decide which was more important.

"Snape was here?" he asked finally.

"Briefly.  And Dumbledore."  Sirius sat down at the side of the bed again.  "That's the worst attack you've had in a while, isn't it?"

Harry nodded.  He didn't have the energy to dissemble.  "Dunno why," he admitted.  "It was only one of his standard nightmares.  He wasn't even angry or anything."  Then he realised and let his head flop back on the pillows with a groan.  "Oh ….  That means he's closer again, doesn't it?"

Sirius grimaced.  "Dumbledore thinks he might be back in England again.  Did you see any of his followers?"

"Loads.  But no one I could identify."  Then Harry frowned.  "No, wait.  He spoke to Macnair - told him to dispose of the bodies."

"Bodies?"

Too late, Harry realised his weakened physical state had also loosened his tongue.  "Yeah," he muttered after a moment.  "There were bodies.  Five Muggle women."

The bedroom door opened and Dumbledore stepped inside, followed by Lupin. 

"Ah!" the headmaster said, pleased.  "Awake again!  Excellent."

Sirius looked over his shoulder at the two men.  "Harry says Voldemort told Mcnair to get rid of five Muggle women's bodies, Albus."

There was a bleak pause, then Dumbledore walked around the end of the bed to stand at Harry's other side. 

"My boy, are you well enough to tell us what happened?"

Harry didn't want to talk about it in front of Sirius and Remus.  It was bad enough having to describe Voldemort's perversions to the elderly headmaster.

"It was the usual stuff," he muttered, directing his comments to the foot of the bed.

To his surprise, Dumbledore reached out and gently clasped his shoulder with one frail-looking hand. 

"I know this is terribly embarrassing and distressing for you, Harry, but the details are often more important than you can know.  We have a great deal of information about Voldemort's followers and knowing what occurs at these … events … of his, knowing who does what, can often tell us who is with him at a given time, even if they are masked or obscured from you.  And that can be most important." 

Harry winced.  "I _hate_ it," he said in a low voice.  "He must be the sickest bastard that ever lived."

"As to that, I cannot be the judge.  But I'm sure you have realised by now that he uses sexual perversion quite deliberately in these shared visions.  You are a young man and still inexperienced, as all right-thinking people would wish you to be.  No one knows better than he how easily the young and innocent are disturbed, titillated and corrupted."

"He wants you to feel ashamed and humiliated."  That was Lupin, his voice gentle.  "Normal, healthy reactions like that amuse and arouse scorn in him, because he has no understanding of them.  He can't feel shame like you do, Harry, because there's a part of him that's rotten beyond repair.  And he wants to deaden you to the emotion because once you stop being horrified by what he does, you're halfway to becoming just like him.  The fact that you can be appalled and revolted is a _good_ thing, never doubt that."

Dumbledore quietly drew up a chair and sat down.  "Remus will be reporting to other members of the Order as soon as we have as much information as possible on Voldemort's current circumstances," he said.  "Tell us what happened, Harry, and we will leave you in peace."

There was clearly no getting out of it, and in the end Harry found it easier simply to relate the whole dream/vision to the cracked plaster of the ceiling.  Periodically one or other of them would interject a question; otherwise his narrative was unbroken.  When he was done, Dumbledore thanked him, recommended that he rest, and he and Lupin quietly left the room.

Which still left Sirius.

After a long period of silence during which Harry continued to stare up at the ceiling, he asked, "Do need anything?  A drink?  Snape left some of that vile concoction of his, but I don't think you really need to sleep just yet …."

Harry shook his head.

There was another pause, then Sirius asked in a different voice, "How often does the Occlumency fail?"

The boy shrugged.  "Too often."

"Once a fortnight?" Sirius hazarded.

"Something like that."  He hesitated, then asked, "Do you think … I mean, he can't do that _every_ night, can he?  So how does he know when I'm weak?"

"There's probably something about the pattern of your behaviour that he clues into.  Maybe the nights when your defences are weaker are because you're more emotional.  Do you think that's likely?"

"Maybe.  I was angry.  And thinking about stuff."

Sirius nodded.  "Strong emotion is part of the link.  You've always tapped into his thoughts when he's angry about something - or very pleased.  He knows a lot more about this sort of connection than you or me, and understands how to manipulate it.  He probably allows himself to be aware of you far more than we realise.  When he senses you're on an emotional high, he's prepared for your walls going down, so to speak."

"So I have to keep my walls up all the time," Harry said rather flatly.

"I don't know," Sirius admitted.  "I know very little about Occlumency.  But maybe it would help if you can try to induce calm before you go to sleep."

Harry felt a little spurt of anger at this.  "I do try to!  It's not always easy, you know!"

"I know.  But there are things you can do to help."

"Such as?"

Sirius hesitated.  "Moony meditates."  Harry looked at him.  "Seriously!  He has a problem with controlling himself sometimes, especially when the full moon is getting close.  Meditating helps him stay calm enough to sleep when the moon starts to pull."

"Would he teach me?"

Sirius smiled.  "Ask him."

There was a long, quiet space then. 

Finally - and very hesitantly - Harry said, "It's not really like that, is it?"

"Is what not like that?"

"Sex," was the reluctant reply.

"No."  His godfather's response was quiet but unequivocal.  "Voldemort and his followers are a very sick, jaded bunch of people, Harry.  They've lost touch with normal human feelings and relationships; everything they do is for quick gratification that avoids meaningful contact with other people.  Sex shouldn't be like that, and it isn't for most of us."

Harry shifted uncomfortably.  "He didn't … well, he didn't even seem to be turned on by it.  He was just, you know, looking.  It amused him but …."

"There's a theory among some of the Order - among the people who make it their business to try and understand Voldemort - that he may not be capable of normal sexual function," Sirius said carefully.  "He's not exactly human anymore, and before that he wasn't even fully corporeal for a long time.  Mentally, he has to have been affected and it could have gone as far as affecting him physically.  A large part of sex is in the mind, after all."

"That's not why he was doing it anyway, is it?"

"No … no, he was doing it to get at you."  Sirius leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counterpane of the bed.  "Harry … you're sixteen, nearly seventeen.  Like Dumbledore said, Voldemort knows how sex in general is going to affect you and he's deliberately playing on that.  You're at an age when it's going to be on your mind a lot anyway and when you're starting to be seriously attracted to people.  He _wants_ you to be horrified and confused and ashamed about what you're witnessing, because he gets a big kick out of that.  But like Remus said, what he's also hoping is to damage you enough that you won't react normally anymore - not just to sex, but to other things.  Because once your reactions to terrible things have been blunted, your ability to see the dividing line between what's right and what's wrong starts to skew.  You stop caring quite so much, especially about other people, and you'd better believe me when I say he wants you to not care about people."

Harry hunched up a bit more.  "Does he … do you think he knows …."

Sirius could guess what he was thinking.  "I don't know if he knows about Ron.  But even if he does, I shouldn't think he knows details.  And whether he knows or not, I don't think you should let it change anything."  He reached out and squeezed Harry's arm.  "Listen to me: You have as much right to grow up and have a normal life as everyone else!  If you want to lust after the lead singer of the Weird Sisters or have a crush on one of the Chasers from the Montrose Magpies, that's nobody's business but yours.  It sure as hell isn't Voldemort's business.  And if you've met someone you want to be close to, then that's nothing to do with anyone except you and that person.  Nobody has the right to make you feel guilty or ashamed of it, Harry.  Loving someone is one of the things that makes life truly worth living and wanting to be physically intimate is a natural part of that."

He studied his godson's face, but it was so difficult to tell what the boy was thinking. 

"Listen," he said gently.  "Remus and I were handfasted at nineteen.  That's over twenty years ago now, but we were testing the waters long before that.  It wasn't easy then and it hasn't been easy since, but it's been worth it because we have so much together.  Do you think Voldemort would understand that, though?  As far as he's concerned, it's mere sentiment, of no value and nothing but a hindrance.  But it's sentiment - love, caring, devotion, call it what you like - that got us through the years when I was in Azkaban, and it's sentiment that gave me the impetus to break out of there.

"Voldemort will always underestimate the power of honest emotion, because he wouldn't recognise one if it walked up and slapped him.  He's warped and bitter and twisted and stunted – so fixated on power and eternal life that he doesn't know how to live anymore.  You are not like that, Harry.  And he's not going to make you like that."

 

*

 

Lupin arrived home in the early hours of the morning to find Sirius wandering around in the sitting room aimlessly.

"I didn't expect you to still be awake," he commented as he shrugged out of his flying cloak.  "How's Harry?"

"Asleep.  He had some tea and a biscuit a couple of hours ago, but he was tired so I gave him Snape's potion and he's been asleep ever since.  He should be all right until morning, but I've set an alarm spell in case he gets restless."  Sirius was fiddling with a book unnecessarily, not looking at his partner.  "He's still in your room – is that okay?"

"Of course.  It's not like I spend much time in there."  Lupin studied him.  "Are _you_ all right, Padfoot?"

Sirius looked at him fully then, and there was something dark in his eyes.  "No.  I just – I'm so damn angry, Remus."

"I know."  Lupin dropped his cloak over the back of a chair and rubbed his eyes.  "I could've screamed myself when Harry told us about that dream.  Did he talk to you anymore after I left?"

"Yeah."  Sirius stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets.  "I was surprised, actually.  We covered quite a bit of ground ... but I suppose his defences were down."  He fidgeted for a moment.  "It is so _wrong_ that a kid his age should have to ask if that – that kind of repulsive orgy is normal."

Lupin's head shot up, appalled.  "I hope you reassured him!"

"Of course I did!  Dear God."

"Good ... good.  Look, I need a drink - I'm going to make some tea.  Do you want a cup?"

Sirius nodded, so Lupin went into the kitchen and put the kettle on.  After a short while Sirius joined him, taking a seat at the table.

"We had a weird conversation where basically I told him it was okay to be sixteen and randy," he continued, but there wasn't a trace of humour in his voice.  "He was afraid Voldemort was snooping on his thoughts and watching who he fancied."

"Dumbledore says not.  Just because he has access to Harry's subconscious through the link doesn't mean he has enough control to rummage around in his mind.  He'd have to be face to face with him to do that.  He _can_ probably pick up on strong emotions, though, so Harry needs to learn to control that a little better – and not superficial control where he doesn't show his feelings, but real control."

"He said he sometimes has problems with the Occlumency because he's too upset to blank his mind."  Sirius raised a brow at his partner.  "I told him you meditate, so he might ask you to teach him."

"That's a good idea," Lupin replied.  "Teaching him won't be a problem."

He took a seat opposite his partner and pushed a mug of tea across to him.  It was Camomile, which made Sirius grimace a little but he didn't complain, knowing that even a mildly caffeinated drink would probably keep him up for the rest of the night in his current mental state.

"Did you manage to talk to everyone?" he asked after a while.

"Most of them."  Lupin sighed wearily.  "Not that it'll make a lot of difference.  The names we pinned on the people in this ... vision ... are hardly a surprise."

"The woman – " Sirius said curtly.

"Almost certainly Bellatrix Lestrange.  God knows, there are few enough women in Voldemort's inner circle and she's always been the most prominent."  Lupin looked at his partner.  "It would fit right in with her odd little perversions too, you know it would.  She would get a lot of enjoyment out of the idea of corrupting a teenaged boy."

Sirius's expression darkened, but he didn't dispute this.  He knew her even better than Lupin, after all.  She was his own cousin.

"Totally aside from the fun of raping and murdering a handful of Muggle women," he said bitterly.

"There's that, too."  Lupin drank down his tea, then leaned over and tapped his partner's hand.  "Come on, drink up.  I have work tomorrow, and even you need some sleep before dealing with Harry.  God only knows how he's going to be feeling, even once he's back on his feet."

Sirius nodded reluctantly and finished his tea.

 

*

 

Harry got up the following morning, later than his wont and looking considerably paler and less robust than usual.  Rather subdued, he toyed with his breakfast then opted to spend the rest of the morning curled up in a large armchair in the living room, with his holiday assignments for company.

This suited Sirius too, who had brought several reports from the office to work on.  Happily, he also remembered that Hedwig had brought Harry a letter from Ron, which cheered the teenager up a little, so the morning was spent peacefully enough.

Ron was greatly intrigued by the programme Dumbledore had laid out for Harry, and while he tended to feel that it was a bit bad to expect anyone to give up their entire summer holiday, on the other hand this was an opportunity not to be missed.  He pelted Harry with questions, especially about Animation ("You never told me you could do that - that's so wicked!"), and speculated on the nature of some of Sirius's father's experiments that they should require the attention of a whole team of experts to deal with. 

 _I'll ask Hermione,_ he wrote. _She's bound to have some ideas, you know, because she reckons she knows everything.  In fact, there's probably something about it in_ Hogwarts: A History.

Harry smiled a little weakly at this sly little reference to Hermione Granger's obsession with this magical tome.  Having spent some time with her during the last couple of weeks of term, he was now well acquainted with her conviction that the contents of the school library, and _Hogwarts: A History_ in particular, could supply any and all of the answers to anything. 

He wasn't sure he wanted her involved in _this_ though, and had half a mind to send Ron a note saying so.  For one thing, he didn't really get along with her.  He supposed she was a decent enough person, but she could be absolutely infuriating; she had a real know-it-all's conviction that she was always right.  And totally aside from that, a small part of Harry freely admitted that he didn't really _want_ to like her, purely because she was Ron's friend.  He still wasn't sure how close their relationship was, and he was fiercely jealous of that.  She had been Ron's friend for nearly six years and she had a lot of influence over the redheaded boy.  Not really having any friends of his own and no prior experience of close friendship, Harry instinctively mistrusted that.

The part of him that would be forever Slytherin demanded that Harry not give Hermione anything, anything at all, that would allow her even the tiniest fraction of such control over him.  The even deeper part of him that bade him mistrust people, that scratched and clawed and bit at the wizard society which both hemmed him in and held him at length, revolted against _any_ kind of friendship and recoiled even against his slowly developing relationships with Ron, Sirius and Remus.

It would be impossible for Harry to put these desperate emotional conflicts into words, though, even if he could find it in himself to try to explain them to someone.  It wasn't as though he understood them himself.

So doubtfully passing over the reference to Hermione, he moved on to the final paragraph and his mild cheer from reading the letter evaporated.

 _Too bad I can't join you for these extra lessons,_ Ron wrote wistfully.  _They sound like they might be really good fun.  But I'm visiting my brother Bill in Egypt this year, and won't be back until the first week of August._

Harry let the letter drop into his lap.  If Ron was going to be away until the first week of August, then he wouldn't be around for Harry's birthday.  Not that he supposed Ron knew when his birthday was, but he'd sort of been hoping that this year he could have a proper party – okay, nothing like the birthday parties Malfoy had always gloated about in the Slytherin common room, but something more than the kind he'd had so far which were comprised solely of Sirius, Remus and a cake.  Being able to invite Ron would have made it more of a celebration.

The letter finished on a few comments about the things Ron was doing at home.  Harry finished reading it and folded it up, carefully putting it back into the envelope.  He spent the rest of the morning staring glumly at his Potions textbook and wishing that he wasn't the person he was.

Lunch was beans on toast; oddly enough, one of Harry's favourite snacks.  This was partly because wizard baked beans came in a variety of different flavours, but also because he had never been allowed to eat them before going to Hogwarts.  His Aunt Petunia regarded them as a nasty, working class sort of food and wouldn't have them in the house. 

"Want to go for a walk and a breath of fresh air this afternoon?" Sirius asked him, as he scraped the last smear of sauce from his plate with a corner of toast.

Getting out of the house for an hour or two would be a relief, so the teenager nodded.  "Okay."

It was one of those strange, blustery March days, very overcast and with more than a hint of dampness in the wind.  Harry felt it was fitting, considering his mood.  He huddled inside his cloak as they strolled along the path around the front of the house.

"Are you all right?" asked Sirius, as they stepped off the gravel onto a track that led through the wood to the stream.

"Yeah."

"Not worrying about Voldemort, are you?"

"No."  And he wasn't.  "It's not like there's much point, is there?"

"Not really.  What's going to happen is going to happen, and that's all there is to it."

Harry glanced at him, a little surprised not to get the usual Voldemort-pep-talk he got from almost every other member of the Order of the Phoenix he'd met, and got a rather crooked grin in return.  Then Sirius was gone and in his place was an enormous black dog that took off down the track a high speed, barking madly.

Harry grinned reluctantly and picked up his pace a little.  In many ways, he had always liked "Padfoot" better than he liked Sirius.  Dogs were less demanding and perpetrated fewer hurts.  And it was often easier to deal with Sirius when he didn't have to hold a conversation with him. 

But Dumbledore had once told Harry that the easiest route was not always the best route; advice that surfaced in his conscious memory at awkward moments.  And he was still _mostly_ willing to believe that Dumbledore knew thing or two about life and people, so he had accepted this piece of wisdom and tried to deal with Sirius as he was, rather than the simpler route of refusing to deal with him at all unless he was Padfoot (which was something he'd tried when he first moved in with his godparents).

The dog reappeared on the path, tail waving, with an enormous stick in his mouth.  He grinned around it and went down on his front paws, haunches in the air and tail waving, in a silent invitation to play.

"Honestly ...." Harry sighed.  "You're not really a dog, you know." 

He took hold of the stick, intending to take it away and throw it into the nearest bush, but Padfoot was waiting for that.  A prolonged tug-of-war ensued, with the canine end growling enthusiastically.  At some point Harry did wonder why he was pandering to his shape-changed godfather instead of simply letting go of the stick, but he didn't want to examine that line of thought too closely.  Eventually, he managed to take the stick away and without even thinking about it, he threw it.  Padfoot barked excitedly and took off after it.

Harry followed more slowly, down to the bank of the stream.  The water was high today, he noticed, and the bank squelchy under his feet; they must have had quite a bit of rain while he was ill.  Not that it mattered.  He could see the faintest sparkle from the wards, which were now fixed on _this_ bank of the stream rather than on the opposite side.  He wouldn't be able to get to the edge without breaching them – _if_ he could breach them now, which he doubted.  Sirius had reinforced them quite a bit after his encounter with them when he was fourteen.

There was a double stump of two felled trees a little way back from there, though, and he sat down on one of them.  Eventually Padfoot came gambolling back with the stick in his mouth.  When he saw Harry sitting down, he dropped it and suddenly he was Sirius again and taking a seat next to him.

Harry looked at him curiously.  "Do you get some weird kind of fun out of doing that?" he asked.

Sirius took this in the spirit it was intended.  "Yes, actually.  It's very freeing being a dog."

"Remus thinks running after sticks is undignified."

A chuckle.  "He would.  Adult wolves wouldn't dream of playing like that, so he doesn't see the attraction.  The wolf mindset is a bit different from the domestic dog's, and the werewolf mindset in particular – it's all about tracking and hunting for him, although he will play if invited to do so by the pack clown."

Harry thought about this.  "Is that how you control him?"

Sirius hesitated.  "Sometimes," he said at length.  "Not always.  I wouldn't call it 'controlling him' personally, because sometimes it's all I can do to keep up with him.  Some full moons are easier than others, of course, and if he has the Wolfsbane Potion it's a walk in the park because he retains human instincts and intelligence.  But as a wolf he automatically has a dominant mindset over Padfoot, and psychological domination counts for a lot.  It's fortunate he can't get outside the wards."

"Has he ever attacked you?"

"No."  Sirius's tone was very firm.  "He's cuffed me once or twice, when I've stepped out of my place in the pack, but never attacked me.  I'm sure that's because I'm the only pack he has, and however little he retains humanity when he changes, I think he remembers that.  It was easier when your dad was alive though.  If Remus got out of hand, Prongs was well-equipped to confront him and between the two of us we could handle him."

There was a long space of quiet.  Harry looked out across the stream, marvelling, not for the first time, at how isolated Black Manor was.  There was a village a few miles away in the opposite direction, but for all intents and purposes the Manor was in the middle of nowhere.

"Peaceful, isn't it," Sirius observed.

"Hm.  What was it like growing up here?" he asked.

"Fractionally better than growing up in the house at Grimmauld Place," his godfather replied heavily.  "You can't get away from anyone there unless you spend all your time in your bedroom.  At least here I had some peace and quiet.  But it was pretty miserable, really.  Well, you'll see if we open up the main part of the building - as if my relatives being the way they were wasn't bad enough, the place is furnished like a mausoleum.  Depressing as hell for an adult, and downright frightening when I was a kid.  All my ancestors' portraits watching me out of the corners of their eyes and whispering as I walked past … never knowing if the gargoyles carved into the banisters and cornices had been animated by my old man …."  He stopped and shuddered.

Harry watched him curiously.  "Were you afraid of your father?"

"I was afraid of both my parents."  Sirius looked away for a moment, and when he turned back to look at Harry there was a  wry and bitter smile on his lips.  "Wisest course of action - they were very dangerous people.  I got mouthy with my father once, when I was your age, and gave him a lot of back talk.  He didn't get angry.  But I didn't sleep much for a fortnight afterwards.  He and my mother made sure there were things waiting for me in the dark."  He looked away again.  "That's when I ran away."

Harry twisted a fold of his cloak between his fingers restlessly. 

"I was afraid of my Uncle Vernon," he blurted out, before he could change his mind.

Sirius turned back to him quickly, eyes searching Harry's face.  "What did he do to you?"

Harry shrugged, already wishing he hadn't spoken.  "Nothing like your dad did to you."

"It's all relative.  Just because he isn't a wizard doesn't mean he can't hurt you just as badly."

"He hit me a few times when I was a kid … mostly for stuff Dudley did.  And they shut me in the cupboard."  Sirius and Lupin already knew about the cupboard under the stairs, although Harry hadn't told them.  He suspected Dumbledore or Hagrid had.  "I didn't get much to eat sometimes."

It had been open knowledge that Harry had started every school year as thin as a rail, with ragged, ill-fitting clothes.  The first thing Remus did was show Harry where the larder was and tell him to help himself whenever he felt hungry.  Then the two men took him shopping for an entirely new wardrobe.  Feeding his old clothes to the kitchen stove, one item at a time, had engendered a temporary sense of camaraderie during his first evening at Black Manor.

"How often was 'sometimes'?" Sirius asked.

Harry shrugged.  "Mostly after I was shut in the cupboard.  I think they just forgot."

The irony of this was that his memories of the cupboard were largely that it was a safe place.  Yes, it had been dark in there and sometimes bitterly cold, but nobody actually came in there after him.  He had known every inch, every corner of that cupboard by touch, and by the time he was thirteen it had been terribly cramped.  But it had still been a safe place.  Once he was in there, no one could hurt him.

He certainly didn't feel the same level of security in his bed in the Slytherin dormitory.

To his surprise, Sirius put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him. 

"You're never going back there," he assured the teenager.

"I know."

One way or another, he wasn't going back to Privet Drive _ever_.  A small, well-hidden part of Harry regretted the loss of the cupboard under the stairs though.

After a while the two of them resumed walking, following the path alongside the stream for a while, then striking out across another that led out of the woods and across the south lawn.  Eventually they emerged in the kitchen garden.

"Have you given any thought to what Dumbledore said the other night?" Sirius asked as they strolled past the third, most derelict greenhouse.

"Haven't had much chance, have I?"

"No, I suppose not."

Harry glanced sideways at him and hid a grin.  He hadn't been mistaken, then; Sirius had very mixed feelings about some of the proposals put forward by the Headmaster, but for some reason felt obliged to promote the idea.  That alone made the prospect of the extra lessons more intriguing to him.  After reading Ron's letter he had more or less made up his mind to accept the offer – he had nothing to lose by it, after all – but tweaking Sirius's chain a little was irresistible.  Especially since he thought there was something more he could get out of the situation if he played his cards right.

"A whole summer's a bit rough," Harry commented casually.

"We're not going to keep your nose to the grindstone twenty-four hours a day," Sirius pointed out, "or even seven days a week."

"Well yeah, but there were things I was going to do."

"Such as?"

He shrugged.  "Just ... stuff.  I'll be seventeen in July, you know."

"No, really?"  The edge of humour in this warned him that Sirius was not entirely fooled and the older man reached out to pat Harry's face mockingly.  "No one would know from those baby-soft cheeks!" 

"Gerroff!"  Harry swatted his hand away.  For a brief, annoyed moment (okay, so he didn't have to shave much yet, but did Sirius have to rub it in?) he hoped that his father had given his best friend a good thrashing at least once during their legendary friendship.  Judging by one or two comments Lupin had made, he probably had; by all accounts the four Marauders had brawled like tomcats as much as they made mischief.  He swallowed his annoyance and gave his godfather a rather spiky smile.  "So, say I give up my holiday for this – what's in it for me?"

"Aside from learning important skills that could save your life one day?"  The tone dripped gentle sarcasm.

"Yeah, apart from that ... and always supposing I want to sign up for the terminal boredom of helping to renovate your house."

Sirius stopped short and gave Harry an affronted look.  "Cheeky brat."

Harry shrugged and carried on walking, inwardly delighted by the older man's reaction.  After a moment or two Sirius caught up with him. 

"I suppose this is where I make the great mistake of asking what you _want_ to be in it for you?"

Harry shot him a sly grin.  "Teach me to be an Animagus."

 

*

 

"One of these days, I'm going to strangle him myself and save Voldemort the bother," Sirius told Lupin, very aggrieved.  "Dammit, Moony, don't you dare laugh!"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Lupin assured him, but he gripped his lower lip between his teeth rather firmly as soon as he'd said it and kept his eyes fixed on the Knarl he was de-quilling. 

"It's not funny!  When am I supposed to find the time to teach him something like that?"

"I'm sure you'll manage."

"I might have known you'd be a bundle of sympathy," his partner growled.

Lupin began to laugh in spite of himself.  "Well honestly, Padfoot!  What were you thinking of when you agreed to it anyway?"

"You know perfectly well what I was thinking of!"

"Yes, and if I didn't know you better I'd be wondering if Harry had Confunded you!  You daft sod, he was stringing you along!"

"Little swine ...."  Sirius prowled the confines of the old greenhouse for a moment or two, before turning to look at his partner with a reluctant grin.  "At least he agreed to go along with it!"

Lupin raised a brow at him.  "Until he tells you he's changed his mind, just so he can see the look on your face!"

"Too late.  I already sent an owl to Dumbledore."

Lupin began to laugh again, and turned back to his work-bench.  After a moment or two Sirius joined him, slinging an affectionate arm across his shoulders and resting his chin on the top of his partner's head.

"I hate to tell you this," he commented amiably, "but you reek of preserving salts."

"There are worse things."  Lupin put the denuded corpse to one side.  "Some of the houses I get called to smell appalling.  The woman who wanted me to rid her of Knarls had a house running with rats.  I offered to put some traps down for her, but you'd think I suggested disembowelling her children."

"I'm not fond of rats," Sirius commented dryly.

"No ...."  Lupin changed the subject without missing a beat.  "And I'd like someone to explain to me why God gave Jarveys voices, you know.  You can get terribly tired of being heckled by something that looks like a ferret."

"Well, you'll have an opportunity to ask Him next week.  Or had you forgotten?  Sunday best robes and the family pew ...."

"And Harry making eyes at Ron whenever he thinks we're not looking!"

Sirius sniggered.

"By the way, I have to deliver some of this stuff to my contacts on Thursday," Lupin said.  "I'll take Harry with me to Diagon Alley.  Is it safe enough to let him roam around on his own for an hour, or do we need to think up a good reason for depositing him with you at the Ministry?"  He raised a brow at his partner.  "Unless you're happy for me to drag him along while I traipse around Knockturn Alley?"

Sirius frowned, considering.  "I don't like it, given that Voldemort may be back in England."

"On the other hand, what are the chances of him hitting Diagon Alley within such a short space of time?"  Lupin picked up another Knarl, looking thoughtful.  "Actually, what are the chances of him hitting Diagon Alley at all?  A bit risky, showing his hand like that."

"True.  Well, see what it looks like when you arrive.  And I'll make a time to meet him somewhere, so he's not wandering around on his own for too long."

"Good idea."

 **End Part 5/11**


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 6/11**

Diagon Alley wasn't quite as busy that day as it usually was when Harry went there during the summer holidays or at Christmas, but there was still a respectable throng.  He stood on the steps of the Potion Pot - a small tea shop near the entrance to Knockturn Alley that he and Remus had Flooed to - and looked out over the heads of all the shoppers.

"Now remember," Lupin was saying in his ear, "Sirius is going to meet you in Flourish and Blotts at midday, so don't go burying yourself in Quality Quidditch Supplies and forgetting the time - "

"Yes, Mother," Harry grumbled, rolling his eyes.  He'd already had this lecture once, from Sirius before he left for work.

"And I hope you washed behind your ears and brought a clean handkerchief," his godfather concluded obligingly.  "I'll meet you both for lunch in the Leaky Cauldron.  And Harry - "

Harry jumped down off the steps and looked back at him. 

"Be a little bit careful, all right?"

"I'm not the one going into Knockturn Alley," the teenager pointed out.

Lupin snorted.  "Sauce-box!  Go on, scram!"

Harry grinned and plunged into the crowd.  True to Lupin's expectations, he headed straight for Quality Quidditch Supplies to examine the latest broom models.  He already owned a Firebolt, which was still top of the range and the industry's standard, but the Comet Excelsior had just been released and looked like a promising racing model. 

He was contemplating the racks of Seekers' gauntlets and wondering if it was worth buying a new pair just as the season was coming to a close (a good pair of dragonhide gauntlets couldn't be worn for a match straight away, but needed seasoning in practice games for a few weeks), when someone slapped him on the back, making him jump.

Ron.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming to Diagon Alley today?" the redhead demanded, grinning at him. 

"I didn't know until last night.  What are you doing here?" 

"Meeting Fred and George - they've got some new stuff they want me to test on people at school.  And I need some conditioning oil for my shin-pads.  What about you?"

"Just browsing," Harry replied.  "I'm meeting Sirius and Remus for lunch."

Ron nodded.  "Come and take a look at the twins' shop in a minute," he suggested.  "They've got some brilliant stuff."

"Okay …."

They wandered over to a shelf full of bottles and jars of broom polish, leather softeners and other equipment treatments.  Ron grabbed a small bottle of Whisky's Patented Conditioning Oil.

"I got those pads from my cousin Felix," he muttered, glancing a little nervously at Harry.  "They're still good, but the leather's getting old and stiffens up really quick."

Harry might not know much about friendship, but he understood the embarrassment of wearing other people's cast-offs only too well.

"They must have been bloody good ones to have lasted this long," he said at once.  "What kind of leather is it?"

"Dragonhide," Ron said, relaxing a little.  "Charlie reckons it might even be belly-hide - you know, the really good stuff."

Harry nodded, and picked up a stone jar of Whisky's Unguent, deciding that his gauntlets would do until the end of term if he made sure they were properly treated.  The two of them fought their way through the other customers to the desk and paid for their purchases, then struggled back to the door.

"I have to meet Fred and George," Ron reminded him, so they joined the flow of shoppers moving slowly down the street, until they reached the place where the Weasley twins rented unobtrusive premises above Madam Florentina's Fabulous Chocolate Emporium.  This reminded Harry of his main objective of the day, which was buying Easter eggs for his scant handful of nearest and dearest.

Madam Florentina's was on the corner of a side alley leading to a little square of five shops set back from the main drag of Diagon Alley.  Harry fervently hoped that she delivered.  There was no way he was going to fit even his small selection of Easter eggs into his pockets.

They lingered in the chocolate shop for a while, shamelessly accepting every offer of free samples, while Harry made his selection.  He arranged for the delivery and they made their way to Ron's brothers' shop, which was accessed by a door at the side of Madam Florentina's.  There was a wooden sign above the door directing customers up a flight of stairs to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

"This is a bit hidden away, isn't it?" Harry said in Ron's ear as they eased past customers heading for the confectionery shop.  "Doesn't that have a knock-on effect on their custom?"

"It's the advertising that's important."  Ron flashed him an impish grin.  "That's mostly me and Ginny; we test the new stuff and sell samples to people at school.  The twins have a mail order facility as well, with a regular advert in the _Daily Prophet_ , and I keep a full catalogue at school in case anyone wants to buy direct."

"You never showed me!"

"Wasn't sure you'd be interested, mate."

They reached the top of the rather rickety staircase and Ron pushed a plain, glass-fronted door open.  Instead of the usual bell alerting the proprietors of their arrival, there was the raucous sound of an extra-strength whoopee-cushion.  Harry grinned in spite of himself as he followed the other boy into the shop, but then his attention was wholly caught by the scene that met his eyes. 

The premises were small and narrow, and had probably been very shabby when the twins moved in.  It looked as though it had been a ratty storage area in its previous life, if the bare, very stained and scuffed floorboards were anything to go by.  Not that it mattered anymore.  If there were windows, it was impossible to tell from the clutter, for not an inch of space had been wasted.  Tightly crammed shelves covered the walls and there was a single free-standing set of shelves down the middle of the room, equally full.  Items hung from the rafters, either on wires or in nets, and baskets overflowing with brightly wrapped and labelled goods spilled out onto the floor.  It was like a grotto and the odd lighting from varicoloured lamps only enhanced the impression.

Harry whistled admiringly before he could stop himself.  "Wow!  Where the hell do they cook up all this stuff?"

"We've got a workshop in the street behind," a voice replied.

Harry turned, to be confronted by one – he had never been able to tell which – of the twins.  The bright, amiable smile on the redhead's face faded at once when he realised who Harry was.  He probably hadn't forgotten the Quidditch matches Gryffindor had lost to Slytherin.

"'Lo, George," Ron said casually.  "You remember Harry Potter, don't you?"

"I'm sure there's a reason the name sticks in my memory," George Weasley replied with deceptive lightness.

"Give it a rest!  He's a mate of mine – "

"Since when?" another voice demanded, and Fred Weasley appeared out of nowhere on Harry's other side.  "Don't I remember a Harry Potter – "

" – in Slytherin?" his twin finished for him.

"Yeah, and don't I remember Mum having spasms the other day?"

"Something about this Potter kid having designs on her ickle Ronniekins?"

Harry tensed, not liking the tone of this at all.

"Knock it off."  There was no humour in Ron's voice and he was suddenly stiff with offence as he confronted his brothers.  "He's a mate, okay?  I don't give _your_ mates any grief."

There was a pause, broken by an odd scrabbling sound.  Ron's old brown robe heaved ... and a small furry face with outsized ears peered out of an inside pocket.  Rosebud struggled out with Ron's assistance and scrambled up onto his shoulder.  She gave herself a quick, very comprehensive shake from nose to tail and sniffed the air.  Her bright blue eyes fastened onto George.

And she bristled and hissed.

Harry, who had already seen her rebuff Ginny Weasley in a similar manner, hastily pinned on his most noncommittal expression, but Ron was far less disingenuous and he smirked at his nonplussed brother.

"She's picky about the company she keeps," he explained, with poorly hidden pride.

"What the hell is that?" demanded Fred.

"She's a Kneazle, you ignorant pillock.  What does she look like?"  Ron reached up and scratched the kitten's neck-fur.  She leaned into the caress but didn't take her eyes off the twins for a moment.

"Really?  A proper one, not a cross-breed?"

" _Yes,_ a proper one.  I have her pedigree and everything ...."

George suddenly grinned brightly.  "Brilliant!  We've been wanting to experiment with Kneazle fur for ages – "

"So buy your own Kneazle," his younger brother told him sharply.  "Rosebud's not a cheap ingredient – "

He was interrupted by their sniggers.

 _"Rosebud!"_

"Ah, bless!"

"Our ickle Ronnie's turning into a right poofter!"

"I always said it was a mistake letting him hang around with Granger all the time!  All those mysterious female vibes ...."

"It'll be pastel robes next –

" – and scented soaps – "

" – and hair-curlers – "

" – and peacock-feather quills – "

" – just like old Gilderoy Lockhart!"

Red with annoyance, Ron turned to Harry.  "Come on, let's go.  I've got better things to do with my time than listen to these stupid gits ...."

"Aw, come off it, Ron!" George said impatiently.  "When did you turn into such a killjoy?  Besides, we've got a stack of stuff for you to take back after Easter.  Think of the commission."

"More Skiving Snackboxes!" Fred added, picking up a luridly printed box and rattling it enticingly.  "Fart Flamers, Itchy-Knicker Dust, Exploding Ink, Portable Swamps, Jarvey-Dung Macaroons ...."

Ron glared for a moment or two, then heaved an irritable sigh.  "Oh, all right!  Just get a move on, okay?  I've got other stuff to do and Mum made me promise to be home for dinner."

"I knew we could rely on your more mercenary instincts," Fred told him, grinning.

"And your healthy fear of Mum!" George added, and he reached out to pat Ron's arm patronisingly.

Rosebud let out a squawk of anger and swatted at him with a needle-clawed paw.  George snatched his hand back just in time.

Ron snorted, good-humour restored, but reached up to detach the kitten from his shoulder.  "Here, Harry, you'd better hold onto her while I grab the stuff ...."

Harry accepted her and began to stroke the wiry little body, smoothing her fluffed-up fur.  He wasn't as ready to accept the twins' apparent about face though. 

"We'll wait outside – "

"Nah, I won't be a minute," Ron assured him.  "Take a look round – your money's as good as anyone else's, after all."  This last was said with a sharp glare at his brothers.

He wasn't happy about it, but he had grown highly sensitive to atmospheres during his years in Slytherin and something told him that walking out now would be too pointed and probably make things worse.  So Harry nodded warily and backed away, turning to examine the contents of some of the shelves as Fred and George dragged Ron off behind the counter.

But it was difficult to concentrate on the racks of Canary Creams, Ever-Leaking Quills, Shrinking Socks and Disappearing Parchment when every so often a poorly-muffled comment drifted over.

"Mum ... throwing a fit ... Dad said ...."

"...not queer, are you?"

Something tightened in Harry's chest, making him bite his lip.  Dumbledore was right about eavesdroppers after all.  Then Rosebud let out an anxious little squeak, making him glance down at her.  He realised his grip on her had tightened and released her apologetically.

"Sorry, Rosie," he mumbled.  "Let's go around here, shall we?"

On the other side of the free-standing shelves was a whole range of explosive devices, including odd little button-shaped things to make desks and cabinets smoke and rattle alarmingly, and another kind to do the same thing for hats; an object that looked like an electric light-bulb but which the label claimed to make showers of fake snow when used in place of a candle; and, filling one whole shelf by themselves, a vast array of fireworks.

Harry was just examining a squashy packet that promised to make someone's bed-curtains roar with realistic but heatless flames (and couldn't he just think of a few people _that_ would be useful for?) when he became conscious of a stinging in his scar.  He rubbed it absently – after all, it wasn't exactly unusual for him to feel odd sensations in it – and continued perusing the packet.  The stinging increased, to a point where it became quite painful and Harry began to feel anxious, remembering the attack of the other night.

Not here, not here, please not here ….

"Found anything?"

Harry looked round quickly at the sound of Ron's voice, and was a little unnerved to see the twins standing behind him, expressions bland but brows raised. 

The stinging sensation ebbed away a little.

"Um ... yeah."  He reached out blindly and picked up a parcel of six fireworks with the vague idea that he could maybe leave them at home until the summer and light them on his birthday.  Although it was equally a depressing thought – he wouldn't be having a party, but maybe Sirius would enjoy helping him to set them off ....

"Super-Cool Dragon Blasters," one of the twins said with apparent approval.

"Six times more powerful than Filibuster's No-Heat Wet-Start Fireworks," the other added.  "Our latest innovation."

"Four new colours – "

"Bigger loops – "

"Yeah, yeah, now ring 'em up on the till, will you?" Ron interrupted them impatiently.  "We _do_ have other places to go."

"Are you of age yet?" one of them asked Harry abruptly as the other rang up the purchase.  "If you can't light them with your wand, you'll need something else – "

"I won't be using them yet," he demurred, and Ron's brothers looked first shocked, then disapproving.

"You don't know that!" the one behind the till told him sharply.  "You never know when an opportunity might come up – "

"You need to be prepared," the other added. 

Harry looked at Ron helplessly, but his friend just shrugged, smiling quirkily. 

"'Be Prepared' is practically their motto," he said.

The fireworks made a rather bulky lump in the inside pocket of Harry's robe as they made their way downstairs again.  And the stinging sensation in his scar was back, sharper than ever, making him anxious to find one of his guardians and let them know.  It might not mean anything, but ….

"What's the time?" Ron wanted to know, as they emerged onto the street.

"Ten to – "  Harry's eyes widened when he consulted his watch.  "Damn!  I'm supposed to be meeting Sirius in Flourish and Blotts at noon, and it's ten to twelve already!  He'll go nuts - come on!"

They took off as fast as they could, but the narrow little street was more crowded than ever as lunchtime approached.  Harry had to fight his way through the throng, leaving Ron somewhere behind him, until he finally burst through the bookshop's doors and skidded to an awkward halt in front of a rack of new releases. 

Flourish and Blotts was as calm as the street outside was manic.  A few customers were browsing and an elderly assistant frowned reprovingly at Harry, but there was no sign of a tall, dark Auror.  Frowning, Harry looked first in the "Defence" section, then round the corner into "Neuromancy".  No Sirius.  He checked upstairs in "Astronomy", "History" and "Potions", then back downstairs and down the poky little set of steps that led to "Astrology", "Cryptology" and "Animalism".  Sirius was definitely not in the shop, and he checked his watch again.  It was now exactly twelve o'clock.

It was unusual for either of his godparents to be anything other than early, but with the increasing pain of his scar Harry was far more worried about their absence than usual.  It _had_ been extremely busy in the street and probably Sirius was just held up, but now was not a good time for him to be late, in the boy's opinion.  He turned and began to climb the steps back to the ground floor.

Which was when he heard the scream. 

Harry froze on the stairs, eyes wide and ears straining.  For a moment or two there was an odd, breathless sort of hush that was wholly unlike the usual quiet of Flourish and Blotts.

Then there was an almighty _bang_ and all hell broke loose.

 

*

 

When Harry had been quite a small boy, possibly no more than four or five years old, one of the older houses less than a street away from Privet Drive had suffered a gas explosion.  The resultant blast had destroyed not only that house, but the ones on either side as well and had caused significant damage to a number of other properties in the near vicinity.

Harry remembered the blast – or, to be more specific, he remembered the noise of it and the chaos that had ensued.  Even people from quite a distance away had screamed and run out of their homes, and although number four Privet Drive didn't have a scratch on it, he recalled find odd bits of rubble and masonry in the back garden for years to come.  But it was the noise he remembered most, the sounds of the explosion and of the panic and fear after the event.

When he heard the blast in Diagon Alley for one moment he was quite sure something similar had happened for it sounded almost exactly the same.  Then he remembered that wizards didn't really use gas appliances.

At that point he stopped thinking and started pulling his wand out of his sleeve, rushing back up the stairs.  Not stopping to think in a crisis was Harry's biggest problem, and one that gave his well-wishers sleepless nights.

When he emerged on the ground floor of the shop, he was stopped short by clouds of dust and smoke and the unexpected, near-pitch darkness.  What the _hell_ ...?  That pause saved his life, for had he taken one more step forward he would have been hit by a sudden bolt of green light that sizzled through the air mere inches in front of him.

Harry dropped to the floor on reflex.  There was a battle going on in that unnatural darkness, one that was punctuated with grunts and curses, the pop of Apparition and Disapparition and brief flares of multi-coloured lights, and from the sounds of things it wasn't just going on inside Flourish and Blotts.  As his eyes began to adjust he was able to make out vague shapes of people, but it was impossible to tell who was who.

More than anything, he wished he could see clearly, to know who was out there and what was going on.  He was desperate to know that Ron, who had been left yards behind him when he entered the shop, was okay and that Sirius was also safe and not one of the people who were all too certainly dying mere feet away.

Then he gradually became aware that the battle inside the shop was being won ... by someone.  Not knowing who was worse, for he was trapped at the back of the store and couldn't even see clearly enough to make his way to the door.  For a moment he wondered if he should try Apparating out of there, but he wasn't sure if he could – he had only the vaguest idea of the theory, for it was a subject that was due to be taught during the next term at school. 

Sounds of battle in his immediate vicinity were dying away and he could hear movements – people beginning to quarter the shop, cautiously searching.  He couldn't stay where he was for much longer and, not knowing what else to do, he began to edge backwards to where the little staircase down to the racks below was.

He had just reached the edge of the stairs when several muffled pops of Apparition made him freeze in place.  His scar flared into sharp, agonising pain.

There was a long pause during which Harry chewed desperately on his lower lip, trying to distract himself from the acid burn of his scar, then he heard a horribly familiar sound.  The sound of a cold, high chuckle.

 _"Rookwood  ...."_   The voice was sibilant, like a snake given human vocal chords.

"My Lord?" another voice said humbly.

"I congratulate you, Rookwood.  You have done most well."

Rookwood sounded less certain.  "My Lord, we have yet to find the boy – "

"You _have_ found him, Rookwood.  He is here – I can smell him, I can feel him, I can hear the thoughts scampering through his pathetic, half-breed mind.  He is _here ...._ "

"Let _me_ locate him for you, Master."  A woman's voice now, full and vibrant and horribly amused.  "Let me hunt down the brat and drag him to his place at your feet."

Harry, moving with the greatest of care, began to edge his way carefully back down the stairs, one step at a time.

"Patience, Bella my love.  One does not gulp fine wines or choice morsels ...."

 _Bellatrix Lestrange,_ Harry's memory supplied obligingly.  He had met her before, during that horrible incident in the Department of Mysteries the year before, when he had broken the orb containing the record of the prophecy that everyone except Voldemort had wanted so badly for him not to hear.

"Harry Potter!"  That hateful voice, so cold and inhuman, was pitched in a travesty of coaxing.  " _Come out, come out, wherever you are!"_

The Death Eaters laughed. 

"Come to me, Harry, my boy – come and face me like a man, as your father did!"

Harry's head was now just below the top step, but the stairs bent halfway like a switchback.  He had to pause, feeling his way with a foot.

Voldemort's voice seemed to drop until Harry couldn't be sure whether he was speaking openly or just inside his head.

"You know it has to be this way, Harry.  Just you and me, face to face ....  Wouldn't you like to be done with this struggle between us once and for all?"

But not for one moment did Harry believe that was what the Dark wizard really wanted.  He had always had a feeling there was something more – something that Voldemort wanted from him before he administered the triumphal _coup de grace_.

 _"Come ...."_ the voice said softly, powerfully, and Harry felt the compelling warmth of the Imperius Curse slipping over him like a blanket.

 _No!_ he thought back rebelliously, forcing the mental 'hand' back.  _You couldn't do that to me when I was fourteen, you filthy, scum-sucking snake, and you're not going to do it to me NOW!_

Perhaps it was the force of the thought, but the 'presence' recoiled, and something inside Harry leapt up unbidden and lashed out in its wake.  It was probably no more than a mild 'sting', the mental equivalent of a furious child slapping at a teasing sibling, but he felt the overtone of surprise and Voldemort was suddenly gone again ... and he was chuckling.

"Naughty!  I shall teach you better manners, boy."

Just in time, Harry remembered to lock his mental shields in place.  Something heavy and powerful rammed into them like a pile-driver and rebounded just as violently.  He 'felt' Voldemort's shock that he had repelled the blow, almost tasted his rage as he gathered himself and launched another blow against the youth's mind.

The shields held, but only long enough to repel that second hammer-blow from the invading mind and as Voldemort backed away to gather himself for a final assault, Harry lost his tenuous grasp on them.  They crumbled like ash and panic flared inside him, panic he knew Voldemort would be able to sense.

As if in response, the Dark wizard let out a crow of triumphant laughter.

"Shall we try that one more time, Harry?" he taunted.

Until now Harry had tried to avoid making any sounds, for he was in no hurry to advertise his physical location.  But if Voldemort got inside his head, it would be a moot point.  He flicked his wand downwards in a short arc in front of him.

 _"Protego!"_

There was a shriek.

For one stunned moment Harry thought he must actually have done something to make Voldemort cry out like that – then he realised it was the Lestrange woman's voice, accompanied by the tearing sound of a powerful hex.

Battle had been rejoined in Flourish and Blotts; the cavalry had clearly arrived.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Harry scrambled down the last few steps and lit the tip of his wand.  There was no refuge down there at all, but surely it had to lead to store rooms or a back door or something?  He fumbled around the shelves, pushing books onto the floor willy-nilly in the frantic hope that an exit might perhaps be hidden behind them, but no luck.  He was stuck in a very small dead end that, moreover, appeared to have been dug out of the solid rock beneath the bookshop.

Something like a hot breath on the back of his neck made him whirl, heart pounding, towards the entrance, but there was no one there.  He was alone down there with nothing but piles of books and the sounds of the battle above –

A presence like a fist closed over his mind, so fast and so tight that he was frozen in its grasp.

 _"Another time, perhaps, Harry,"_ a familiar voice whispered into his mind.  _"Then again ... perhaps not."_

And the walls seemed to cave in around him.

 **End Part 6/11**


	7. Chapter 7

**Part 7/11**

Clouds of choking dust and smoke, a slowly dissipating spell of Eternal Darkness, a stream of panicking witches and wizards and, moving against the flow of the escaping multitude, grim-faced Aurors and other officials.  Remus Lupin fought his way along with the latter, trying hard not to give way to the panic rising up in his own chest as he saw the devastation.

He should never have tempted fate by suggesting that Voldemort would not hit Diagon Alley.

At the heart of the chaos was Flourish and Blotts, the whole frontage of the shop blown out and desultory flames licking at the heaps of masonry surrounding it.  Lupin's heart seized at the sight.

And as if to mock his fears, the great clock at Gringotts began to strike a quarter past the hour.

A figure loomed up out of the smoke and dust, like a boggart – tall, begrimed and familiar.  He was seized by the shoulders.

"Remus!"

"Sirius!  Thank God!"  For a moment Lupin was dizzy with relief – then he came down to earth again with a crash.  "Harry – "

"He was with you?  Tell me he was with you!"

He could only shake his head and stare, horrified, into the shell of the shop.  Then Sirius was gone, plunging into the ruins, ignoring the shouts of the Aurors and officials who were working to free the injured and dead.  Lupin was on the brink of following him when a hand grabbed his sleeve.

"Professor - "

The trademark red hair was utterly obscured by a thick layer of dirt, there was a deep gash across his lower face, and generally speaking he looked thoroughly battered and singed, but Ron Weasley's voice was unmistakable. 

"Professor, Harry went into the shop but – but I didn't see him come out!"  The boy was nearly hysterical, his eyes streaming in the acrid smoke and making muddy tracks down his grimy face.  "It happened so quickly – he was yards ahead of me – and they just _appeared_ – and someone pulled me back into a shop doorway  ...."

An action which had probably saved the boy's life, Lupin realised, looking at the row of bodies being slowly laid out in the street.

More people were emerging from the bookshop now, levitating a stretcher.  An elderly shop assistant lay on it, covered in blood and dirt, making their task more difficult by protesting vehemently about something. 

"Get back in there!" he was raging.  "There are people still in there!  My customers – "

Lupin abandoned Ron and ran to the man's side, seizing one of his flailing hands to get his attention.  "Was there a boy in there?  A teenager – dark hair, spectacles?"

"I keep trying to tell these fools!" the shopkeeper snapped.  "He was in the basement when they came – when _He_ came!  I didn't see him come out and You-Know-Who deliberately collapsed the wall over the entrance to the stairs!  He must still be down there!"

Lupin released him and ignoring the alarmed cries of the others who had heard the shopkeeper's words, he plunged into the wreckage after Sirius.

 

*

 

It was terribly dark and hot when Harry regained consciousness.  The air was foul with dust and smoke, making it hard to breathe without choking, and when he dragged himself upright his head swam.  When he touched his crown gingerly, he could feel a warm lump and his hair was sticky with blood; he probably had a concussion.  He couldn't see much, for his glasses were gone, but by some miracle he had retained his grip on his wand.

"Lumos."

He was still stuck in the small basement room, surrounded by rubble and badly damaged books.  The heat was soon explained; in one corner was a small, smouldering fire which he hastily battered out with a copy of _Written In The Stars: A Guide To Life, Death And The Hereafter_.  Then he paused, breathing hard and with some difficulty, and looked around himself again.

No staircase.  In the dim light from his wand and without his spectacles it was impossible to tell that there had ever _been_ a staircase.  Only a smooth new wall met his gaze – that and the writing etched into it.  After a moment, he dragged himself over to take a closer look.

YOUR MOVE.

Harry stared at it for a long time, uncomprehendingly.  Then he slowly sat down, looking around at the small room that was surely intended to become his tomb.

For he was trapped ... and the air was turning bad.

 

*

 

"Flourish and Blotts was built on top of some experimental diggings for new vaults at Gringotts some four hundred years ago," Kingsley Shacklebolt's deep voice was saying into Sirius's left ear, as they examined the tonnes of rubble that blocked the stairs down to the basement.  "It was logical to use them as more storage space."

"But is there another route out?" Lupin demanded.  "And is the basement properly ventilated?"

Silence.

"We _have_ to get him out of there," snapped Sirius.  "Dammit, Kingsley, I'm not leaving him to suffocate!"

"I'm not suggesting we do," his superior retorted, "but even if it was safe to do so, there isn't room for more than one or two of us to work here and there's no way we can move that quantity of rubble quickly.  It's been fused solid – we're going to have to use blasting charms and that could bring the upper storey down on top of us."

Another voice, much younger, intruded.

"Auror Shacklebolt?"

"Yes?" he barked.

"We sent emergency messengers to Hogwarts, Black Manor and those Muggles in Surrey, sir.  There's no sign of the Potter kid."

Kingsley shrugged slightly at Sirius's expression.  "There was an outside chance that he Apparated out of here at the first sign of trouble," he said.  "We had to check."

"He hasn't taken Apparition lessons yet," Sirius said through gritted teeth.  "I doubt he knows the complete theory."

"He's on record as having Apparated accidentally at least twice when he was a small child," Lupin put in quickly.  "If he was panicked enough ...."

"Well, it's too late now," Shacklebolt said, staring at the rubble in disgust.  "There's some kind of anti-Apparition ward mixed into this lot – something I've never seen before.  No one's Apparating out _or_ in.  Has the Department of Mysteries been contacted?"

This comment was thrown at the younger Auror behind them.

"Yes, sir.  They're sending someone."

"Good.  If they can help us to remove the ward, someone can Apparate in with a portkey.  In the meantime ... we'd better get blasting somehow."  Kingsley hesitated, looking at Sirius.  "You should – "

"No."

"Sirius, you're too close to this – "

"I said _no._   I'm staying right here."

"As am I," Lupin put in with finality.

 

*

 

The worst of it was that he couldn't hear a thing.  There was nothing to suggest that there was anyone above or that anyone was trying to get him out.  Perhaps they didn't know he was there.  That shop assistant had seen him enter the basement, but the old man had probably been killed. 

Harry's biggest fear was that he would pass out and not wake up again.  He felt reasonably sure that although the air was not good, it would nevertheless sustain him for a little while longer; it was surely the effects of the dust and an overactive imagination that made him think that it was harder to breathe than normal.  But with the wound on his head, he dared not allow himself to pass out ... as he was desperately inclined to do. 

He needed to get out.  And if no one was going to help him, he would have to manage that feat by himself somehow.  Exactly how, however, he wasn't sure.

Several attempts to force the exit to re-open had failed, and he wasn't sure if it was because the blocked up opening had been made resistant to spells or simply that the head injury was interfering with his magic.  The most he had managed was a few chips out of the wall and a large crack running from floor to ceiling.  The latter had got his hopes up for a while, but repeated attempts to force it wider with carefully aimed spells had also failed, and after a prolonged burst he had felt so dizzy that he'd desisted.

Now he slumped to the floor and tried not to think, with increasing agitation, of his likely demise in the basement.  The words on the walls stared back at him mockingly and he angrily turned away.

Which was when something inside his robes bumped against his leg.  Frowning, Harry rummaged in his inside pocket and pulled out the fat brown-paper parcel containing Fred and George Weasley's fireworks.

For a moment or two he stared at it blankly, then he pulled the paper and wrappers off and grabbed one of the fireworks, examining it.

Fireworks were fireworks, weren't they?  Surely they contained if not gunpowder then something very like it.  A tiny hope sparked inside him as Harry spread the brown paper out on the floor and carefully began to take the firework apart.  Sour-smelling black powder spilled out onto the paper, interspersed with other tiny bits of material, presumably whatever it was that made the fireworks produce shapes and colours.  He could feel the shimmer of magic that clung to the stuff.

Harry looked up at the crack in the wall speculatively.  He knew almost nothing of Muggle-style physics and or the laws that governed combustion.  On the other hand, he was in a position where he had little to lose.  He might not be strong enough to blast himself out of here, but he was certainly strong enough to magic the contents of six fireworks into lighting itself.  The only question was how to do it.

He knew enough about explosions to know that in situations like this there would probably be one spot of the wall above all others that would allow the gunpowder to work to maximum effect.  Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing where that spot was.  But Fred and George had hinted that the fireworks were pretty powerful; if he could put the powder at regular intervals down the crack, it might at least widen it.

Grabbing a nearby book, Harry began to rip out pages.  He emptied the contents of the other five fireworks onto the brown paper and using the torn-off hardback cover of another book, he divided the powder up into a dozen even lots and screwed each one up into a page.  Using magic to halve the wicks of the fireworks made him sweat, but in the end he had twelve small bombs each with a short wick sticking out of them.  He jammed them into the crack in the wall at as regular intervals as he could manage.

One final thing occurred to him.  If this worked and the wall _was_ blown open, there would probably be a lot of shrapnel flying around.  It took an effort, for he was weakening, but he dragged as many books over to the far corner as he could and built himself a kind of tiny bomb-shelter.  It was very tiny.  He would have to curl up on the floor behind it, but that would have to do.

Tucking himself behind the wall of books, Harry pulled out his wand and reached deep inside himself for the last trickles of his magic.  His head swam for a moment, making his stomach lurch, but he pointed the wand at the wall and focussed.

 _"Incendio!"_

 

*

 

"Stop, Sirius – _stop!"_

Lupin had to physically grab his partner's wand arm and drag it down to stop him.  All three of them – himself, Sirius and Kingsley – had been taking it in turns to hammer at the wall of fused rubble with blasting charms, but Sirius in particular was throwing every ounce of power he had into the task and cutting himself no slack whatsoever.  He was running with sweat and staggering, and Lupin, who was himself utterly exhausted, winced to see it.  It was possible for a wizard to drain himself magically with abuse like this and Sirius had to be dangerously close to that.

"Rest," Lupin told him forcefully.  "Let someone else take over!"

"We don't have _time,_ Remus."

"Sirius, you _must!_   You're going to do yourself permanent damage – "

He stopped, flinging up his head.  They were on the run up to the full moon, which was mere days away, and his senses were always much sharper then.  Something just on the edge of his hearing and sense of smell was not right ....

"Remus?"

Alarm flashed across Lupin's face.  "We have to get out of here – "

"Remus?"  Sirius resisted his attempt to move him.  "What's going on?"

"Dammit, Sirius, do what I say for once!"

He shoved the taller man towards the door, the two of them stumbling over rubble as they went.  They'd barely reached the street when there was another muffled _bang_ , followed by a surge of heat and air pressure that nearly lifted the two of them off their feet.  There was a moment of stunned disbelief, then out in the street there were more screams and cries of alarm at the unexpected explosion.  Meanwhile, inside the shop they could hear the crashing and sliding of more broken masonry.

It could not have taken more than a few minutes for it to settle again, but it seemed like forever.

Then Sirius whirled with a cry, and before Lupin could stop him he was hurtling back into the chaos of the wrecked bookshop.

Swearing a blue streak, his heart hammering, Lupin did the same.  Behind him he was vaguely aware of Kingsley and a handful of others following more cautiously in his wake.

Whatever had caused this latest explosion, it had ensured that the shell of Flourish and Blotts would never be repaired.  The upper storey hadn't completely fallen in, but one of the balconies was hanging down in an alarming manner and the walls, particularly two ground floor supporting walls they had already been concerned about, were now riddled with ominous cracks.  But the pile of fused rubble that had been blocking the entrance to the basement was gone.  In its place was the doorway – scorched by the blast – and dangerously damaged stone steps that Sirius was already scrambling down.

"Sirius, be careful!  Dammit, wait for me – "

Sirius either didn't hear or didn't care, and Lupin launched himself after him, praying fervently under his breath for something he couldn't even put a name to.  It had been doubtful enough that Harry had survived the original blast that trapped him down there; that doubt had grown stronger with every passing minute that he was trapped with a dwindling air supply.  For him to have survived this latest explosion seemed impossible.  And yet Lupin couldn't give up, anymore than Sirius could give up.

He could hear his partner calling Harry's name desperately as he tripped and stumbled down the last couple of stairs.  He didn't remember this part of the bookshop being so small or claustrophobic, but then he hadn't been down here often.  Then he saw the heap of paper and dust and rubble in the farthest corner, saw Sirius on his knees digging with his bare hands.

"Oh God ...."

Lupin fell to his knees beside Sirius and began to help him.  Beneath all the plaster, dust, charred wood and God knows what else there was a thick layer of shredded paper and leather bindings.  Books ... layer upon layer of books, their pages and covers reduced to pulp by the force of the blast. 

Beneath that ... cloth.  A robe.  They seized on it and between them dragged him out.

"Harry?" 

Sirius patted at the boy's face; underneath the filth his skin was pale and waxy.  He fumbled at his neck for a pulse, leaned in to see if he could hear his breathing.

"Out of my way, Lupin!"  Kingsley forced his way between them and made a more competent check for life signs.  There was a horrible pause as he put his ear to Harry's mouth.  "He's not breathing.  Get a mediwizard here."  This last was flung at someone behind them, who immediately ran back up the steps.

The senior Auror cleared the boy's airways and began to administer mouth to mouth resuscitation. 

Another wait for an eternity or two.  Lupin found that he couldn't look at Sirius; instead he looked around at the wreckage, wondering where Harry's spectacles and wand were ... so like James, he was, always breaking his glasses and having to get someone to repair them ....

"Come on, dammit," Kingsley panted, as he pressed on the boy's chest.

There were voices at the head of the stairs now; someone was giving orders.  Lupin thought he heard the querulous, demanding voice of Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic.  He found that he didn't particularly care. 

A sudden exclamation ... and a faint, weak cough. 

"That's more like it!"  Kingsley sat back, panting.  "Good lad!  Let's get him out him out of here – _STRETCHER!  NOW!_ "

"No – I'll carry him," Sirius said, but when he tried to stand up he collapsed against the nearest wall.

Kingsley cursed him without rancour. 

 _"MAKE THAT TWO STRETCHERS!"_ he bellowed.

 ******End Part 7/11**


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 8/11**

Harry awoke to the combined smells of antiseptic and vomit which always seemed to cling to hospital facilities. 

His initial thought was that he must be in the school infirmary again, and he braced himself for the pain of a Quidditch injury.  It certainly felt like he'd been knocked around by a bludger; everything ached horribly and his right side felt like one big bruise from shoulder to ankle.

Then he opened his eyes and blinked uncomprehendingly around himself.  He wasn't sure without his glasses on, of course, but he _thought_ the screens were wrong.  And instead of the long infirmary windows, this place had a lot of artificial light.  Confused, he reached out to where the bedside table ought to be and fumbled for his glasses.

Someone caught his hand and stilled it.

"Easy, Harry.  I didn't realise you were awake."

Lupin.

Harry swallowed dryly and whispered, "Remus?"

"I'm here."  Lupin's familiar figure loomed up over him.  He was smiling at Harry, but he looked very tired and drained.  "Do you want a drink?"

He nodded and his godfather helped him to some water. 

"Where am I?" Harry demanded, as soon as his throat was clear.

"St. Mungo's.  Do you remember what happened?"

St. Mungo's?

"I thought ...."  Harry stopped, confused.  "I didn't have a Quidditch accident?"

"No ... no, you didn't."

A sudden memory assailed him: heat, darkness, air thick with dust, rubble pounding his body, and a hated voice laughing at him in the darkness –

Harry lurched upright before Lupin could stop him.  "Sirius!  Remus, where's Sirius?  Was he in the shop?  Where – "

"Harry, calm down!"  Lupin grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back on his pillows.  "Sirius is fine."

"And Ron?  He was behind me, I left him behind, but it happened so fast and I thought I heard them killing people in the shop – "

"Ron is fine too.  All right?  I wouldn't lie to you about something like that, would I?  They're both _perfectly all right._   There's nothing for you to worry about."

One of the screens was swept aside and a stern-looking nurse bore down upon them both. 

"Awake, are you, Mr. Potter?" she said.  "Well, that's no reason for you to be making such a fuss.  You're not to get excited!"  She began to fuss with the blankets, tucking them back in.

"Perhaps you could let Harry's doctor know he's awake," Lupin suggested.

"Doctor Gecko is already on his way," she said rather starchily, and after one last admonishing look at Harry, she bustled away again.

"Where is Sirius?" demanded Harry.

"In the next bed," was the wry response, and Lupin pulled the other screen back a little to reveal his partner.  Sirius was clearly out for the count.  "He over-stretched himself trying to rescue you and now he's having to rest up a little."  He saw Harry's worried look and quickly added, "I told you, he's fine.  He was awake earlier and making a nuisance of himself."

Harry relaxed just a fraction.  "You look tired too."

At this, Lupin gave him a genuine smile.  "Well, I got a little knocked-up too, but I didn't do quite such a good job of it as Sirius."  He changed the subject.  "Dumbledore wants to speak to you in a while."

Harry tensed up again.  "What about?"

Lupin raised a brow.  "About the attack on Flourish and Blotts, of course.  I believe Kingsley Shacklebolt would like a word too, but he might be content with the report you give to the headmaster."

Harry shifted restlessly, looking anywhere but at his godfather.  "There were other people there, why can't they ask them?"

"Their perspective won't be the same as yours."  When Harry's fretful scowl only deepened, he changed the subject.  "Never mind that – it's more important that you rest for now.  That was a bad head injury and you can't expect to just walk away from it."

The screen was suddenly pushed aside again, and a tall, thin doctor appeared beside the bed.

"Awake at last, Mr. Potter!" he said cheerfully.  "That's the ticket!  Now ... how's that head of yours?"

Correctly guessing that Harry would not appreciate being nursemaided through this interview, Lupin tactfully withdrew to Sirius's bedside, where he could listen in and be on hand without embarrassing the teenager.

 

*

 

The interview with Dumbledore did not go at all as anyone had expected.

Lupin had guessed it might be a difficult discussion from Harry's behaviour earlier, and from the start he felt it would probably have been better if Severus Snape had not been present.  But even he was unprepared for Harry's actual response to questioning: Flat-out denial.

"Do you tell me that Lord Voldemort was _not_ present during the assault upon the bookshop?" Dumbledore asked the boy gently.

"That's right."  Harry's chin was set at a stubborn angle very reminiscent of his father, and he wouldn't look the headmaster or anyone else in the eye.

"What of Rookwood?  Or Madam Lestrange?"

He shrugged.  "They weren't there."

"Potter – " Snape began, in a tone of the greatest aggravation.

"Be quiet, please, Severus," Dumbledore interrupted.  The head of Slytherin House shot his superior a sharp look and subsided, glowering.  The headmaster considered Harry for a moment.  "My boy, are you suggesting that this was not a Death Eater attack at all?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," Harry muttered sullenly.

"I see.  Perhaps you could explain how you came to be trapped in the basement of the shop."

There was a long pause.  Harry picked at his bedspread.

"I went to see what all the noise was," he said finally, so low that Lupin felt sure Dumbledore could hardly hear him.  "But when I got halfway up the stairs, the wall collapsed."

"One of the shop assistants survived," Lupin put in, after a moment.  "He says that Voldemort was definitely there and that after talking to you for a while, he deliberately collapsed the wall before Apparating out of the shop with Bellatrix Lestrange and Rookwood.  He also says that there were definitely other Death Eaters present who escaped.  And the body of a known Death Eater was among the dead in Diagon Alley."

"If he told you all that, why are you asking me?" Harry demanded.  His head shot up; green eyes flashed.

"Because he can't tell us what Voldemort said to you," Dumbledore said, his voice still gentle and kindly.  "Only you can tell us that."

"And I told you Voldemort wasn't there!"

"He lied, did he?  The shopkeeper?" snapped Snape.  "And to what purpose, Potter?  Before you open your mouth to give us any more infantile lies yourself, you might stop and remind yourself that this man has nothing to gain by defending your worthless reputation in front of the Minister of Magic – and indeed has much to lose!"

"Severus, please step outside and wait for me there," Dumbledore said sharply.

Snape swept to his feet, a whirl of black robes and temper, and paused, glaring at the boy.  Harry was staring down at his bedspread again, but his face under its untidy fringe was red and he was biting his bottom lip savagely.  His fists were balled up in the gaily patterned cloth of the bedspread, and Lupin heard the first, ominous rattle of the water jug standing on the bedside table.

"Easy," he murmured, and the rattling stopped.

Snape's lip lifted in a magnificent sneer but he capitulated and left the room.

There was another long pause during which Harry continued to stare at his knees and Dumbledore studied him with kindly eyes.

Finally, the headmaster said levelly, "A number of people died in this incident Harry.  The largest number of deaths in one attack since Voldemort's return."

Harry twitched but said nothing.

"I don't believe that they died for no reason, nor do I believe that Voldemort would expend so many Death Eaters to no purpose.  I believe that this was a hasty attack, sacrificing cunning in favour of taking the initiative.  Again, I don't believe Voldemort would have done this without reason.  I believe there was something he wanted, but only you can tell me if he got it."

"He wasn't there," Harry whispered stubbornly.

"Then that must stand as the answer for the time being."  Dumbledore slowly stood up.  "I will leave you now, but ... should you wish to speak to me you have only to ask and I will come."  There was no reply to that, but he was unruffled and inclined his head to Lupin.  "Remus, a word if I may."

"Of course ...."

They were halfway to the door when Harry suddenly spoke.

"Professor?"

Dumbledore turned back.  "Yes, Harry?"

"I – I changed my mind.  About the defence lessons this summer.  I don't want to do them after all."

"We can discuss that another time.  I don't believe this is an appropriate moment."  The headmaster's tone was perfectly courteous, but Harry looked up and his eyes were as stubborn as ever.

"I won't change my mind." 

"I repeat: This is not an appropriate moment.  We shall talk again in a while."  Dumbledore inclined his head and continued walking.

Snape was fuming when the other two wizards emerged, but Dumbledore ignored him, turning to Lupin.

"He's afraid," Lupin said at once, before anyone else could speak.  "He's lying because he's terribly afraid.  I can smell it on him."

Snape made a disagreeable sound, but Dumbledore shook his head.  "Remus is quite correct.  Harry's mental shields are badly damaged and I too was able to read something of what was going through his mind while we talked.  Voldemort _did_ speak with him but I don't think it was that which frightened him."

"More likely it was the mental assault," Lupin said.  "After the vision he had a few days ago, he asked Sirius if Voldemort could actually read his mind.  We said not, but ...."

" _Reading_ his mind is the least of his worries!" Snape snapped.  "If the Dark Lord can get inside Potter's mind, the boy's puerile thoughts will be the last thing to interest him!  He will be satisfied with nothing less than full control – "

"Do you really think so?" Dumbledore murmured.  "No, I think Harry's thoughts are very much what he wishes to infiltrate.  It is, after all, what he has been trying to do for the past year.  Killing Harry is not sufficient or else he would have let any of his creatures do so long before now.  No, there is more Voldemort wants from Harry and twisting the way the boy thinks would serve many purposes."  He looked at Lupin.  "Harry's mental shielding has been damaged, and we must focus on helping him to rebuild it as soon as we can.  But that will be impossible while he is in his current state of denial."

"I'll see what I can do.  But possibly Sirius would be better – Harry's starting to relax and trust him."

"Sirius needs rest," the headmaster reminded him, smiling a little, but he nodded.  "If it's possible for him to help, though – "

"I'll speak to him as soon as I can," Lupin nodded. 

"Good.  But Remus, my boy, don't let him over-stretch himself!  _You_ will need him at full fitness very soon."

At this Lupin grimaced and he glanced out of one of the long hospital windows.  It was dark outside and the moon, growing perilously close to full, was hanging all too visibly in the sky. 

"I can manage if I must," he said, ignoring Snape's curled lip.  "We adapted a cellar beneath the house for emergencies, but I have to admit I don't relish the prospect."

If he had to confine himself for the change, they all knew he would probably do himself terrible injuries.

"Well, it shouldn't come to that," he said briskly, turning his back on the window.  "I'm more interested in how the Minister is taking this latest outrage.  I haven't seen the _Evening Prophet_ yet, but I assume that this time even he can't hope to brush it under the carpet."

"Cornelius Fudge is at present attempting to persuade anyone who will listen that it is, as yet, unproven who the assailants were," Dumbledore replied, faintly smiling.  "I wish him the best of luck in his endeavours – he appeared to find few willing listeners when I visited the Ministry earlier, and the _Prophet_ 's editor has clearly decided to throw his lot in with the greater majority.  The evening edition is full of references to Voldemort … at long last."

"Well, that's something," Lupin said, "although God knows it would have been far preferable for it to have come at less loss of life."

Snape made another disagreeable sound, which finally tried Lupin's patience too far. 

"Oh, and just out of curiosity, Severus – how come _you_ knew nothing of this attack?" he asked cordially.  "And nothing of the earlier attack on Harry, for that matter?  A little odd, don't you think, that Voldemort is keeping you in the dark?"

"Remus," Dumbledore warned gently.

"You're welcome to change sides and try it for yourself, Lupin," Snape retorted acidly.  "I feel sure you have … something … in you that the Dark Lord would find interesting.  Oh – and I would remind you that it was not _I_ who took the brat into Diagon Alley and let him loose in the first place - "

"Gentlemen," Dumbledore intervened sharply.  "I believe I have already made myself clear on this – many times!  Remus, I think you will be pleased to find that no mention has been made of Harry by name in any of the articles covering today's incident.  There was a brief mention of Sirius's presence, but that is to be expected of a prominent Auror.  Several Order members worked hard to ensure that – "

He was interrupted by the unexpected approach of Ron Weasley.  The youth was pale, the cut along his jaw closed but still livid, and he looked hesitant as he approached them.

"Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore greeted him.  "It's late – why are you still here?"

"I'm waiting for Dad to finish at the Ministry and collect me, sir," the boy replied.  His eyes were worried.

Lupin thought it highly unlikely that Arthur Weasley would be going home that night.  "He might be late, Ron.  Why don't we send him a note and I'll take you home?"

Ron looked awkward now.  "Actually, Mr. Lupin, I was hoping to see Harry first," he confessed.

Lupin glanced at Dumbledore, whose eyes were beginning to twinkle once more. 

"Harry would like that, I'm sure," the elderly headmaster said kindly.  "All we would ask is that you not try to ask him about what happened to him in Flourish and Blotts.  Harry has had a terrible shock and he might react rather badly to questioning."

Ron eyed them anxiously.  "He's all right, isn't he?"

"Physically, yes," Lupin assured him, "but he needs a little time to recover.  Let's say a maximum of fifteen minutes for a visit, all right?  Then I'll see you home."

The boy agreed to this and Lupin escorted him onto the ward, pausing only to say softly to Dumbledore, "I'll speak to Sirius about Harry when he awakes."

Dumbledore nodded and turned to Snape.  He sighed.

"Come, Severus.  We must speak with the Order."

 

*

 

Harry was huddled under his blankets when Ron slipped inside the screens.  The redhead looked relieved when he saw his friend was awake.

"You're okay," he said, dropping into Dumbledore's discarded chair.  "I was really afraid ...."  He stopped, swallowed and gave Harry a weak smile.  "You looked pretty dead when they fished you out."

Harry had never felt less "okay", but he roused himself to study Ron with similar anxiety.

"Are _you_ all right?  Your face – "

"Just a scratch."  Ron fumbled in his robes and released Rosebud, who stretched and greeted Harry with a chirp.  "That was really scary – I can't believe they hit Diagon Alley!  You _sure_ you're okay, mate?"

"Bump on the head, that's all."  Harry saw Ron's sceptical look.  "The dust got to me a bit too," he conceded.

Remembering Dumbledore's warning, Ron backed off.  "You reckon you'll be in here long?"

"I don't know.  I hope not.  It's a full moon on Monday and Remus needs Sirius at home."  Harry glanced over his shoulder briefly, although he couldn't see his godparents because of the screens.

"Oh."  Ron frowned.  "Is it safe for you when he – you know – _changes?_ "

"Yeah.  Sirius puts up special wards and I stay in my room.  But Remus is mostly okay when Sirius is with him.  He's an Animagus, remember?  He turns into a dog and keeps Remus company."

"Must be really weird, turning into a wolf and not being able to stop it."

"It's really painful too.  Sometimes he dislocates his joints or bites himself."

They sat in pensive silence for a while, then Lupin put his head around the screens.  "Ron, I'd better be taking you home now."

Ron grimaced but nodded and stood up, looking at Harry uncertainly.  "Will you be okay?"

"Yeah, of course." 

But Harry didn't look okay, and the redhead was unconvinced.  "Rosebud could stay with you."

Harry looked at the kitten, who was delicately cleaning her paws, and felt a lump rise in his throat.  But he shook his head.  "No, you take her home with you.  She'll only cry."

"I'll be coming back," Lupin put in.  "Don't fret!  This building's crawling with Aurors – Harry will be fine.  And your mother must be worrying by now."

Which was all too true.  Ron hated to think what she would say when she saw the state he was in.  His face had been cleaned up and the cut would be nothing but a faint scar by morning, but his clothes were a mess.  And he had missed dinner, although his father had sent a message home as soon as he could to let his mother know that none of the family had been seriously hurt.

"I'm for it," he told Harry ruefully.  He paused, then added reluctantly, "I'd better go."

Harry nodded and tried not to look as though it bothered him.  He couldn't have succeeded very well, though – after a dithering moment Ron leaned forward and gave him a self-conscious kiss on the cheek, and hastily retreated.

 

*

 

Sirius Black finally awoke properly, rejuvenated and clear-headed, in the early hours of the morning.  And that, he thought, was the problem with mixed Strengthening and Sleeping Potions.  The damn things threw your body-clock completely out of whack.

He looked around the small, four-person ward, noting that he and Harry were currently the only occupants.  There was a nursing station at one end, dimly lit by a red lamp, where a male nurse dozed over some paperwork; and according to Remus there were two Aurors stationed outside the door as well.  Remus he had firmly sent home some time after ten; his partner had been exhausted but hadn't wanted to leave, as he was worrying about Harry. 

But Harry, who had been given a Sleeping Draught just after nine, had been taking a walk with the Sandman by then and showed no signs of moving before morning.  Well, he was moving now and Sirius wondered if that was what had woken him after all.  Harry wasn't making much noise, but he was very restless and Sirius was a light sleeper even under the influence of potions.

He sat up and looked at the nurse.  The man was perhaps a little _more_ than dozing; in any event he was unaware of Harry's movements.  Sirius threw back the covers and swung his feet to the floor.  For a moment he felt light-headed, probably a residue of the potions, but he waited for it to pass then carefully stood up and went to his godson's bedside.

This wasn't the first time he had seen Harry in the grip of a nightmare, by any means.  During the first month that the boy had lived with his godparents he suffered from a number of sleep problems, including night terrors and sleepwalking.  He would never talk about it, but it had done a lot to make Sirius – whose relationship with Harry at that point had been at an all-time low – ease up on him.  He suspected that even Dumbledore didn't know the true extent to which Harry suffered, for even when the dreams were really dreams and not something more sinister, the boy wasn't free of Voldemort's claws.

He was in the grip of a nightmare now, his head tossing on the pillow and his hands twisting into the covers, and Sirius instinctively reached out to try and soothe him.  Waking anyone from a nightmare could be dangerous, or so Remus had once told him; better to try and calm him without waking him.

"Harry?" he said softly, leaning over the boy.  "Harry, it's okay."

But Harry didn't appear to hear him.  Sirius found that his tight-lipped, silent thrashing was infinitely worse than if he had cried out.  He was so self-contained even when he was awake; this rigid control seemed desperately unnatural.  He was dragging in great gulping breaths as well and holding them.

"Harry, wake up!  It's just a dream, you're safe – " 

Without thinking, Sirius touched his shoulder and suddenly Harry was awake – rigid, silent, his eyes staring up into his godfather's face, stark and terrified.  Then he sat up with a jerk, panting for breath, and bowed his head forward until it touched his knees.

"Easy," Sirius said quietly.  He tentatively touched Harry's back and when he didn't object began to rub his shoulders soothingly.  "Take it easy.  You're safe here, it was just a dream."

But Harry was beginning to tremble, shaking his head.

"No ... not a dream.  Never."

Sirius sat down on the side of the bed and gently but firmly pulled the boy towards him.  Harry resisted for a moment or two, then gave in and ended up with his head butted up against his godfather's chest.

"You're okay for now," Sirius told him.  "No one can touch you here and as soon as I can, I'm taking you home.  You're safe, Harry.  He can't touch you again."

"Always there," Harry mumbled, "even when he isn't.  And _inside my head!_ "

"When?"

Reluctantly and indistinctly: "In the shop."

Sirius closed his eyes for a moment.  "What did he want?"

"Me.  He said I have something he wants before he kills me.  He tried ... he tried the Imperius Curse again."  Harry's breath hitched.  "He was playing with me."

"How?"

"It was ... like it was a joke.  A game.  He shut me up in there and dared me to get out."

"Dared you?"

Harry nodded slightly.  "Left a message – on the wall.  "Your move"."

Sirius held himself very still for a moment, trying to control his sudden rage. 

"He knew I'd get out," Harry said then, a little desperately.  "He wants something from me.  And ... and he thinks I'm funny.  I'm just a laugh to him, a bit of entertainment whenever he feels like it." 

"There's a cure for that," Sirius said grimly.

 

*

 

Harry and Sirius were released from St. Mungo's on Sunday, much to the relief of both of them and Remus.  Sirius and Remus in particular were concerned about the full moon which was due to fall the next night and Harry wanted simply to get away from the hospital, where he was thoroughly fed up of being poked and prodded and questioned. 

He had been forced to endure another session with Professor Dumbledore, only this time under the supervision of both Remus _and_ Sirius.  There had been no recriminations about his previous performance, but Harry himself wasn't happy about it - mostly because he felt that he'd exposed and made a fool of himself in front of a group of people he would much rather not see him behaving hysterically.  But the one benefit of complete disclosure of the events in Flourish and Blotts was that afterwards they all seemed inclined to let the matter alone.  The only sticking point had been Sirius's absolute insistence that Harry _must_ go ahead with the planned extra training over the summer.

"You said Voldemort thinks you're funny," Sirius said, when Harry's expression turned mutinous.  "You're a source of entertainment to him.  Well, the only way to deal with that is to make yourself into someone he doesn't find very amusing.  He only laughs at you because he doesn't see you as much of a threat, but we can change that.  You have the potential to become a very real threat to him, and personally I would like to see you do more than simply defend yourself."

"Wouldn't it be nice," Lupin suggested gently into the pause that followed this, "if, the next time he tries to send you one of his little visions, you could turn the tables - return the favour?"

Harry appreciated this idea enough to let the subject of abandoning the lessons drop.

He didn't know it, but this marked a significant turning point in his relationship with his godparents, and with Sirius in particular.  As little as three or four days previously he would have dug his heels in on principle, but the incident in Diagon Alley had left him almost as shaken as witnessing Voldemort's resurrection two years previously.  His first instinct had been a vague and panicky resolve to put it out of his mind, as though not talking of it could make the threat less real.  He had experienced something similar on the previous occasion, but he had been in such a profound state of shock then that he had blindly done as Dumbledore asked.  This time it had seemed easier to refuse to satisfy everyone's morbid curiosity about his twisted relationship with Voldemort, but he hadn't really expected a late night conversation with Sirius when his defences were down.

It was a small but very important step forward.

 

*

 

Arriving home on Sunday afternoon, Harry discovered that his purchases from Madam Florentina's had been delivered in spite of all the upheaval in Diagon Alley that day.  Hedwig was also waiting for him, clicking her beak anxiously as he dragged himself wearily into his room and slumped on the bed. 

Nevertheless, he couldn't just roll over and go to sleep like he wanted.  The following day was the Spring Full Moon, which was the 'Easter' observance for the greater part of wizard society who were White Goddess pagans rather than Wizard Christians.  So he spent half an hour packaging Easter eggs for Blaise Zabini and Millie Bulstrode (who were the nearest he had to friends in his own House) and sent Hedwig off with them. 

After that, Harry couldn't get up the energy to do more than shove the box with the remaining Easter eggs under his bed, kick off his shoes and fall backwards across the coverlet. 

"Are you feeling all right?"  Sirius was standing in the doorway.

"I'm knackered.  Sorry." 

"No need to be.  Take a nap - dinner won't be until later.  A couple of people from the Order are coming over to help Remus and I check the wards, so don't worry if you hear voices."

In the event Harry slept through any noises.  He dragged himself downstairs just after seven to find Sirius dishing up dinner and Remus sitting at the kitchen table with Kingsley Shacklebolt.

"Good, you're up," Sirius said when he saw Harry.  "I was about to come and get you."

Harry greeted Shacklebolt politely and went to help his godfather serve.  Dinner was quieter than usual; the three adults talked in a desultory fashion about business at the Ministry while Harry picked at his meal, feeling groggy and perversely restless at the same time.  He was not alone, for Lupin was also restless and off his food. 

Harry was surprised when the meal was over by Shacklebolt abruptly turning to address him. 

"So, young Potter."  Harry eyed him warily.  "The Office for the Regulation of Underage Wizardry has tasked me with speaking to you about your unauthorised use of magic the other day."

For a moment, Harry couldn't think what he meant.  Then realisation dawned and he flushed with rage, but before he could say anything his two guardians had rounded on the other man for him.

"What the _hell_ \- "

"What are you talking about?  What was he supposed to - "

"Wait a minute!" Shacklebolt interrupted loudly.  Both men subsided, glaring, and Harry noticed with interest that Lupin was gripping the edge of the table with white-knuckled hands as though it was the only thing preventing him from doing physical damage.

Possibly it was.  His control was very fragile just before the full moon.

"I said I was tasked with the job," Shacklebolt said sharply.  "Just because it's an idiot job thought up by that moron Fudge doesn't mean I don't have to do it.  Doesn't mean I have to act upon Harry's answers either.  But I have to be able to say, in all honesty, that I talked to the boy and impressed upon him that use of underage magic is not on.  All right?"

There was a pause then Lupin lost control, albeit in a minor way.

"For fuck's sake!" he exclaimed, with uncharacteristic crudity.  "The whole bloody world is full of imbeciles and jobsworths …."

He shoved himself away from the table and stalked out of the kitchen door that led to the garden.  It crashed shut behind him.

"Bad timing, Kingsley," Sirius said quietly.

The other man spread his hands deprecatingly.  "Understood, Sirius, but I have no choice.  Better me than some of the other fools in the department."  He turned back to Harry.  "So, young man - you and I both know that you really didn't have much choice but to use magic to try and save yourself, but it's my duty to inform you that the Ministry's line on such incidents is that you should wait for an adult to rescue you."

"That's complete crap," Harry retorted.  "There were no adults around!"

"Even so," Shacklebolt replied levelly. 

"And there are provisions in the Regulations for saving my own life or someone else's - "

"Even so.  It is the _Ministry's_ viewpoint on the matter that you should not raise your wand outside of the confines of your school until you are seventeen years old.  Do you understand?"

A familiar sense of injustice surged up inside Harry.  "This is because it's me, isn't it?  They wouldn't hassle Draco-fucking-Malfoy or - "

"Harry," Sirius put in warningly.

"Yes or no, young Potter," Shacklebolt said, as though Harry hadn't spoken.  "Do you understand?"

"I understand that they'll never give me a chance," Harry said, and he was obscurely pleased when his voice emerged steady and cold.  "I understand that they'd have been happier if Voldemort had killed me the other day."

Sirius flinched at this, but Shacklebolt's only reaction was a growing tension around his jaw.  "Yes or no, Potter."

 _"Yes,"_ Harry hissed.  _"I understand."_

He pushed himself violently away from the table, knocking his chair flying without caring, and stormed out of the kitchen.

Shacklebolt let out a breath.  "Two out of three," he commented dryly, and he took a quick sip from the water glass beside his plate.  "Not bad for one evening."

"What makes you think you haven't pissed me off?" Sirius asked, raising a brow. 

"Lupin I understand, it's the nature of his condition, but that kid is too damned ready to bite, Sirius. It's going to get him into trouble."

"Fudge doesn't want him dead."

"Not yet, anyway.  It'd be a little inconvenient for quite a lot of people - including Voldemort, possibly."

Shacklebolt gave Sirius a sharp look.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sirius shrugged.  "We need Harry to get rid of Voldemort.  Coincidentally, so does Fudge, however unprepared he is to admit it.  And Voldemort wants something from Harry before he administers the _coup-de-grace_.  Never think Harry isn't well aware of all that, Kingsley.  He's known for all too long that he's just a thing people place a specific and limited value on, and that when he's fulfilled his purpose they'll have no further use for him."

"I hope he doesn't think the Order views him that way."

"On the contrary, I believe that's exactly what he thinks."  Sirius's voice hardened.  "And if you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that quite a few members of the Order _do_ view him as a necessary but dangerous tool to be used and disposed of as soon as can be."

"Not the inner circle!" Shacklebolt retorted.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that.  Besides, what do you call the 'inner circle'?  Marius-Martyn Bellecoeur sits in on every important meeting, as does Quintus Criggle.  Can you imagine how they'll react when they find out we're planning to give Harry special training this summer?"

"Dumbledore only includes them because we _must_ have as many of the pureblood families behind us as we can - "

"They're fair-weather friends," Lupin's voice interrupted.  There was an odd aura of barely controlled violence about him as he closed the kitchen door behind him and walked slowly over to the table.  He picked up Harry's chair and sat down in it.  His eyes, when they turned to Shacklebolt, were a disconcerting light amber colour and not wholly human.  "The Criggles will switch sides at the drop of a wand, and the Bellecoeurs are a faction within a faction.  Are you aware that some of our so-called pureblood friends have been arguing for Harry to be withdrawn from Hogwarts and his education halted?  It's rumoured they even approached Fudge about it."

The Auror frowned.  "What purpose would that serve?"

"They're afraid of him," Lupin said with a shrug.  "He's quite a powerful wizard in the making.  They argue that educating him beyond OWL level is asking for trouble later on."

"And let's not forget the fact that as a half-blood Harry's an affront to their beliefs about the natural order of things," Sirius added dryly.  "Marius has openly expressed the opinion that Harry should never have been accepted at Hogwarts in the first place."

"Does the boy know that?"

"I'd be surprised if he doesn't," Sirius said with a snort.  "Harry knows more than you'd think.  He spends most of his life with a bunch of people who have no concept of hiding gossip for the subject's own good."

"Although to be fair to him, he probably wouldn't think much of the concept himself," Lupin remarked.  "As Dumbledore has pointed out, Harry is a Slytherin."

"He's no shrinking violet, then," Shacklebolt concluded with a shrug, as he got up from the table.  "Harsh as it might seem, if he's the pragmatist you'd have me believe he'll put up with the status quo, for the time being at least.  That's all I need to know."

"It's what happens when he decides he's had enough of the status quo that we all have to worry about," Lupin commented.

 

 **End Part 8/11**


	9. Chapter 9

**Part 9/11**

Monday dawned and found Lupin pacing in and out of the house restlessly.  He was in a difficult temper and stayed out of Harry and Sirius's way as much as he could, rather than snap at them unnecessarily. 

Harry found this unsettling, although he had seen it happen enough times now to accept it.  It was nothing personal; it was an expression of the upcoming Change that evening that the older man had difficulty controlling, and some full moons were worse for him than others.  All the same, it meant there was a tension in the air which couldn't be dispelled and Harry brooded in his room for much of the day.

By early evening, Lupin was prowling around the kitchen garden, waiting for the sun to go down, and Sirius was obsessively checking the wards, especially the ones at the bottom of Harry's tower which were there purely in case disaster happened and Lupin somehow got into the house while he was Changed. 

Harry selected some books from the library to keep himself occupied while he was on his own that night and disappeared back into his room.  He was just checking his special tea tray (which Sirius spelled to stock itself with hot drinks and snacks from the kitchen, so that he didn't have to leave the tower) when his bedroom door opened and Ron walked in, grinning and carrying Rosebud and a duffel bag.  Sirius was just behind him.

"I thought you might appreciate some company," he said, seeing Harry's astonished face.  "Ron's dad agreed he could stay the night."

The main question in Harry's mind was what Ron's _mum_ had to say on the matter, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.  Pleased with himself, Sirius reached over and tapped the tea tray with his wand, conjuring up an extra mug and plate.

"Got everything you need, you two?  Ron, do you have a sleeping bag?"

"I'm fixed, thanks, Mr. Black," Ron said, patting his duffel.  Rosebud chirped from the crook of his arm.

"Right.  I'm going to close the wards in about ten minutes."  For Ron's benefit he added "You'll be able to get to the bathroom, but you won't be able to leave the tower until I lower the wards again at dawn."

Ron nodded his understanding but Harry took an uncertain step towards his godfather. 

"Be careful, okay?" he muttered awkwardly.

Sirius smiled.  "Don't worry, we'll be fine.  If there's any trouble the wards will let me know and I can be back here in moments."

When he was gone, Ron raised a brow at Harry.  "Why does he lock you in the tower?"

"It's just a precaution, in case Remus accidentally manages to get into the house," Harry explained.  "There are special anti-werewolf wards at the bottom of the stairs."

"Yeah, but what if he got through those?  You don't have any other way out from here, do you?"

That hadn't occurred to Harry before, but he could see at once that Ron was right.  There was no fireplace in the tower - Sirius had explained that when he first moved in, for where there was a fireplace there could theoretically be a Floo point and even with a warded and trapped Floo there was a tiny risk of a weakness in the wards.  So there was no escape through a fireplace.  Only a lunatic would attempt to Apparate or Disapparate through the Black Manor wards, which were lethally strong and closed even against trusted friends.  And as a final measure the wards also repelled portkeys, which hadn't even been the case at Hogwarts until recently.

"I'd have to go out of the window on my broom," Harry said finally, and Ron grinned. 

"Be a bit of a squeeze, wouldn't it?"

The casements _were_ quite small, but - "It's surprising what you can do when you're motivated!"

They both laughed.

"Hey, how did Sirius get your mum and dad to agree to let you stay?" Harry demanded, when they were both sitting on the end of his bed with mugs of tea.

Ron snorted.  "Mum doesn't know!  She's staying with my Aunt Ælfleda for a couple of days.  It was Dad who said I could stay over, but only for one night."

Harry wondered if Mr. Weasley realised that he and Ron were … well, something.  More than friends.  He also wondered if Mrs. Weasley would go nuts when she found out about this impromptu pyjama party, but he didn't like to ask.  He and Ron hadn't really discussed their relationship much since the first time - they had fallen into a kind of friendship with potential and there it had stayed.

Only now Ron would be staying the night.  In Harry's bedroom.  Which was … something.

"I'm glad you're here," Harry said suddenly, with feeling.  "I've stayed here during a full moon before, of course, but it's just a bit …."  He stopped.  He didn't want to admit that after his encounter with Voldemort it would be more unnerving, or that he was afraid that tonight he might dream.

But Ron seemed to understand.  "I brought my wireless," he said.  "I thought maybe we could see if there was a Quidditch game on anywhere.  The twins fixed it so that I could pick up WWS - "  WWS was the Wizard World Service, " - so there's usually a game on _somewhere_."

"Brilliant!  Can you pick up the American network as well?  Sirius's wireless can sometimes pick up Quodpot matches if the wind's in the right direction."

"Dunno - we can try."

They didn't manage to find any Quodpot games, but they caught the tail end of an exciting Quidditch match in Germany and, unexpectedly, the first half of a match in Morocco played on flying carpets.  Unfortunately the signal broke up just as Harry was waxing enthusiastic about the probable manoeuvrability of carpets compared to brooms and instead they found themselves listening to a rather boring Gobstone League game in Swansea instead.

The moon had come up without either of them noticing; any sounds from outside had been covered by the noise of the wireless.  Harry passed Ron a couple of small chicken and vegetable pies from a plateful that had appeared on his tea tray and they munched quietly while Ron tried to coax the wireless onto a different wavelength.  When he finally succeeded, Harry nearly choked at the opening bars of a familiar theme tune.

"That's a Muggle station, you prat!"

"Really?"  Ron stared at the wireless as though it had suddenly turned into a Ping-Pong table.  "How did that happen?"

"I don't know, do I!  Oh God, switch it off - that's _The Archers_."

"The what?"  Ron was fascinated.  "Doesn't sound very interesting.  Is it a play or something?"

"Sort of.  It's a soap."  Harry saw his friend's blank expression.  "A bit like the serialised stories in _Witch Weekly_ , you know?  It's been going on for years.  Aunt Petunia used to listen to it, until they started spicing up the storylines."

"'Spicing up'?"

"I think they introduced a gay chef."

Ron snorted with laughter, shaking his head in disbelief.  "Muggles are so weird."

He fiddled with the wireless set a little more, but apart from a rather boring news article about crup-breeders and a game show called _What's My Charm,_ there didn't seem to be much on.

"I brought my chess set too," Ron said finally, giving up on the wireless.

"Okay.  I'm not a very good player, though," Harry admitted.

Ron shot him a wicked grin.  "S'okay - I'll be gentle with you!"

"Aw, do you have to?"

"Well, if you _want_ me to treat you rough …."

For a brief second their eyes met and humour turned to something else.  Harry felt sudden heat under the collar of his shirt and Ron's ears turned red; then Rosebud, who had been licking gravy from Ron's fingers, made a mournful sound and they both hastily looked away.

 _Wow_ , Harry thought and he shifted uneasily on the bedspread.  He cleared his throat.  "Does … does she need feeding?"

It was sort of reassuring that Ron also needed to swallow a couple of times before he could answer.  "Um … I fed her before we left, but - but if there's a spare pie …."

Harry scrambled to get one and Ron broke it open for the kitten.  Rosebud daintily ate the chicken pieces, lapped the gravy from the vegetables and left the pastry entirely.  While she was doing that, Ron dug her little basket and litter tray out of the bottom of his duffel bag and set them in the corner of the window seat.

"She's quite good at night," he said inanely.

"She's getting really big," Harry agreed quickly.  "She's grown inches since your birthday."

"Mostly around her stomach," Ron joked wryly, but he was relaxing again.  "Tell you what, Harry … it's getting a bit late.  How about we get ready for bed and then play chess for a while?  Saves doing it later."

"Good idea ….  Do you want a shower or anything?"

"Maybe in the morning, but I'll brush my teeth …."

They scrambled around, Ron digging a spell-shrunken bundle of sleeping bag and pyjamas out of his duffel and Harry pulling his night things out of the cupboard.  It shouldn't have been awkward really, since they were both quite used to sharing space and facilities with other people, but for some reason this  was different and Harry found himself dropping things and mumbling curses.  He showed Ron where the bathroom was and then hurried into his own pyjamas while he waited for the other boy to finish.

"Didn't see that ghost of yours at all," Ron commented when Harry came back from brushing his teeth.

"Cousin Susannah?  Oh ... um, she's not speaking to me at the moment."

"Why not?"

"I threw a sponge at her and ... said some stuff," Harry replied uncomfortably.  He was feeling just a little bit guilty about his treatment of the ghost now, for Sirius had told him that she _had_ raised the alarm the night that Harry had collapsed at the bottom of the stairs.  He hadn't seen her since to apologise to, though.

"Probably should have done that before," Ron remarked.

"Yeah ... maybe."

Harry climbed into the middle of his bed and Ron joined him, putting the chess board between them and setting up the pieces. 

"I always got the impression you had more of a way with women than that," the redhead teased.  "How many girlfriends have you had?"

Harry gave him a look.  "Two," he said, "though what that has to do with anything – "

"Three," Ron corrected him, amused.  "There was the Chang bird – "

"Yeah, but hasn't everyone been out with her?"

" – and Snodgrass from Ravenclaw – "

"And that was all."

"No, it wasn't.  You went out with Parvati Patil as well, didn't you?"

"She asked me to take her to the Yule Ball," Harry said, unimpressed, "and since Cho went with Cedric, it seemed like a good idea to take her up on the offer.  But I didn't go out with her!  God, she was the biggest pain in history – never stopped whining.  Which you should already know, since you practically live with her for most of the year."

"She drives me up the wall," Ron admitted frankly.  "Her and Lavender Brown – the Giggle Sisters.  They drive Hermione nuts too, she has to share a dormitory with them."

Harry very nearly remarked that it couldn't be much fun on either side, since Parvati and Lavender probably had even less in common with Hermione than he did, but he managed to bite his tongue just in time.  Calling Ron's friend a swot wasn't a good idea.

"What about you then?" he demanded instead.  "You went out with Hannah Abbot, didn't you?"

Ron shuddered exaggeratedly.  "She talks to her plants!"

Harry sniggered.  "And whatshername – Lovegood."

"Luna?  That was a bet I had on with Seamus and Dean."

"Nice," Harry said sardonically.  Then he looked thoughtful.  "She's not so bad, actually," he admitted grudgingly.  "A bit weird, but ...."

Ron raised his brows.  "But?"

Harry shrugged, looking away.  "She walked smash up to me at the beginning of last year and said she believed me when I said I hadn't murdered Cedric.  And that Voldemort was back.  It meant a lot at the time."

There wasn't much Ron could say to that, so he gestured to the board.  "You're white ...."

They started to play.  Harry wanted to ask Ron about Hermione and if she had been his girlfriend too, but he didn't know how to raise the subject without it coming out the wrong way.

"So," Ron said hesitantly after a while.  "How far did you get with any of them?"

"Nowhere at all with Patil," Harry said at once.  "I managed to hand her over to one of those French students before she got too clingy."

Ron chuckled.  "What about Chang?"

"Before or after Cedric died?" Harry asked, keeping his eyes on the chessboard.

"I didn't think you were really going out with her before."

"True.  Well, we snogged a few times.  It wasn't much fun – she was dead moody all the time."  There was a pause, then Harry added reluctantly, "I s'pose I was too, a bit."

Ron hid a grin.  To say that Harry was sometimes a "bit moody" was an understatement.  On the other hand, the older boy was beginning to recognise that there was some justification for Harry's emotional ups and downs.  His life wasn't exactly normal by anyone's standards.

"What about Snodgrass?" he asked.

"Amy?"  To Ron's increasing amusement, Harry began to turn red.  "We ... she was okay.  It wasn't bad."

"Define "it"."

Harry gave him a shove.  "Come off it!  It was nothing like that!"

"Like _what?_ " laughed Ron.

"Like whatever it is you're obviously thinking of!"

"You didn't shag her, then?"

"Did _you_ shag Abbot?"

"Nah, I didn't fancy doing it in a greenhouse."  Ron moved his queen.  "Checkmate."

"Bugger.  I told you I was a crap player."

Ron chuckled and gave a couple of the pawns a poke with his finger.  "Come on, you lot – line up again."  The pieces moved back into their original positions, grumbling a little.  "So, did you?"

"Eh?"  Harry peered at him from under his untidy fringe, momentarily confused.  "Did I what?"

"Amy Snodgrass – did you shag her?"

Much to Ron's amusement, Harry's colour deepened again.  "Why, are you looking for tips on how to get into her knickers?" he demanded defiantly.

"No, I'm looking for tips on how to get into yours!"  Ron said it on reflex, not even thinking until it was out of his mouth and too late to call it back.  Then he realised what he'd said and blushed an appalled  crimson.

For a moment the two boys stared at each other, stunned and unsure what to say – then an exaggerated sigh of impatience from the Black King on the chessboard drew Ron's attention back to it.  The little chessman was rolling his crystal eyes at them while the two queens giggled.

"Hey!" Ron said, a little indignantly.  "Everyone's a sodding critic!"

Harry let out a nervous hiccup of laughter.  Then before he could lose his nerve, he reached across the board, grabbed Ron by the collar of his pyjama shirt and kissed him.  But Ron had chosen that exact same moment to raise his head anyway, and instead of the gentle, romance-novel kind of first kiss they had both been anticipating, they bumped noses and foreheads and Ron somehow got his hair caught in the hinge of Harry's spectacles.

"Ouch!"

"Bugger!"

It took a few minutes to sort themselves out again, and then Ron had to gather up the scattered and protesting chess pieces and put them back in their box.  He was inclined to laugh at the mishap.

"Want to try that again?" he asked, grinning, when the chess set was safely back inside his duffel bag.

But Harry shook his head, mortified.  "Better not," he muttered.  "Maybe we should just, you know, go to bed."

Ron looked at him for a moment, bemused, then shrugged.  "Okay ...."

He began to unroll his sleeping bag across the floor, while Harry moved around the room, turning out the lamps.  Then there was a pause as one climbed under the bedcovers and the other began to wriggle into the bag.

"Do you want to borrow a pillow?" Harry asked finally.

"Nah, I'm okay, thanks."

There was another pause. 

"Are you warm enough down there?"

"I'm fine, honest."

Silence.  Then some rustling and a sigh.  Finally, there was creaking of bedsprings and suddenly Harry's head was hanging over the end of the bed. 

"This is stupid," he told Ron.  "My bed is _huge_.  Why don't you ... why don't you just come up here and sleep?" 

Ron looked at him.

"If – if you want," Harry stammered.

"Thought you'd never ask," Ron said.

 

*

 

It was very warm and cosy sharing a bed with another person, even if the two of them weren't doing anything more than lying side by side.  Ron spared a moment or two to regret the abortive kiss and whatever it might have led to before he dozed off, but really this was so much more already than he'd been expecting, and even if his body was just a bit revved up at Harry's nearness, it didn't matter.

If he dreamed, he didn't notice it. 

But Harry dreamed.

It was the main street of Hogsmeade at night, the street lanterns glowing eerily.  He could hear shouts and screams and cries of pain, hear the exchange of hexes between dozens of combatants, but it all came to him through a mist and the only clear spot lay between him and the black-robed wizard twenty feet away.  Between them lay a glowing cord that tied them together and burned like acid, that pulled and twisted like a mad thing, and in his head all Harry could hear were the shrieks of rage from the creature at the other end of the cord –

"Harry!"

He woke with a jolt, shaken out of the nightmare by Ron's hands on his shoulders.

"Harry, mate, wake up!"

"'M awake," he mumbled, patting the redhead clumsily.

Ron breathed a shaky sigh of relief.  "That sounded bad ... do you have dreams like that often?"

"All the time," Harry replied, too groggy to censor what he was saying.

"God ...."  And to his surprise, Ron wrapped his arms around him and pulled him back down beneath the covers.  "I don't know how you stand it."

"Doesn't always happen," Harry said, rousing a little.  Ron was so warm and smelled so good ... something in Harry's belly turned hot and liquid in response.  "They taught me this thing – to close my mind.  Doesn't always work though."

"Shit." 

"Who'd be me, yeah?" 

Warm hands rubbed his arms and, taking it as an invitation, Harry returned the favour shyly.  It was hard to see Ron's face in the moonlight and without his glasses, but he thought the other boy was regarding him solemnly.

And then Ron was leaning forward to kiss him, and even though their noses bumped again slightly this – _oh thank you, God_ – _this_ was how it should have been the last time, lips brushing tentatively, then with more assurance.  Mouths opened, tongues explored – with shocking suddenness Harry realised that he was pressed tight against Ron and that he was _hard_ , harder than he'd ever been, and there was no way Ron couldn't know it too.  He shifted, tried to pull away, but with a tiny sound Ron tugged him even closer and – _oh_ – there was an answering hardness, hot and urgent, pressing into his belly through layered cloth of pyjamas.

They parted with a tiny gasp, staring at each other, panting.

"Do you - ?" Ron asked, unsure.

"Yes - "

"Can I – "

"Yes!"

 _What bastard invented pyjamas anyway?_ Harry thought crazily as they struggled to unbutton buttons and get rid of flimsy trousers.  _I am_ never _wearing them again ...._   Ron was faster than he was and in frustration he managed a kind of wriggle that got the pyjama bottoms down most of the way and a couple of good kicks disposed of them entirely somewhere at the bottom of the bed.

One day, maybe, they would look back on this unromantic manoeuvring and laugh, but right now – _fuck romance –_ it was more important to map out each other's skin.  Harry ran an exploring tongue over the salty warmth of Ron's throat, sucking lightly and dragging a deep moan from the other boy.  In response he felt slightly rough fingertips brushing across his shoulders and chest, rubbing his nipples lightly before drifting with unexpected confidence down his belly.

Ron was wonderfully direct.  Before Harry fully realised what was happening, one hot, surprisingly large hand closed around his erection and began stroking confidently.  For a moment all Harry could think was: _He must have done this before_.  Then: _Of course he has, so have I._  

Actually, this was the one thing he and Amy Snodgrass had done together.  She hadn't been very good at it, not at first, but Harry hadn't been bothered by that because, well, _anything_ like this tended to feel pretty good from his point of view, and besides, he could hardly blame her for being tentative when she'd never actually seen a bloke's equipment before, could he?

He'd never seen a girl's before either, come to that.

But – _ye gods!_ – this was a whole different magnitude of good, even compared to what he did for himself.  It had to be a bloke thing, knowing exactly how and where to touch and how rough he could be, and to have someone else do this to him, with that attendant element of unpredictability, was a hundred times more exciting than touching himself.

Harry managed to remember, just before his brain went south with the rest of his blood supply, that this was supposed to be a mutual activity and made a grab for Ron.  The redhead gasped and his previously steady rhythm faltered.  Harry groaned in response; at least it was meant to be a groan but came out sounding more like a whimper, and he whimpered again as he felt the shocking heat of Ron's erection against his palm.  It wasn't at all like touching his own.

Ron gasped at the touch of Harry's cautious fingers; after a stroke or two he panted, "No – stop – I'm going to - "

 _"Yes – "_

Harry had once heard it described as being like catching the Snitch – all that activity and tension and excitement caught up in one brilliant final moment.  At the time, his only thought had been – _How would he know?  He isn't even a Seeker._

He still thought the speaker had been wrong.

This was better than all the Quidditch manoeuvres in the world.

 

*

 

He was woken at dawn by the odd, shimmery sensation of the wards at the bottom of the tower dropping.  Harry blinked into the half light for a moment or two, aware that Ron was pressed tight to his side and not-quite snoring.  It took a moment or two to extricate himself without waking the other boy and another difficult five minutes to find his pyjama bottoms amid the tangled bedding.

Beyond his bedroom, the tower and stairs were chilly.  Harry trotted across the landing, his eyes on the lamplight in the kitchen.  When he reached the foot of the stairs, he could see that Lupin was half-collapsed in a chair at the kitchen table and an exhausted Sirius was putting the kettle on the hob.  They were both bruised and filthy, wearing nothing but worn old robes.

Lupin's head snapped up when Harry walked through the door, his eyes still more wolf than man.  Harry halted at this, uncertain, but Sirius nodded and beckoned when he saw him.

"It's okay – come here, Harry."

He approached cautiously, aware that the goosebumps on his skin weren't entirely due to the cold.  Lupin's eyes were tracking him in an anything but human way, but if Sirius wasn't worried ....

"Here – "  Sirius took his arm and firmly led him to Lupin's side.  His voice took on the same lecturing tone that his partner's did sometimes.  "Don't stare.  Kneel down beside him.  If you have to approach a werewolf so close to the Change, you always do it humbly."

Humbly?  Harry felt himself break out into a cold sweat at the look in Lupin's eyes.  This was not his gentle former professor.

"All male werewolves are alpha males," Sirius explained softly.  "Pack leaders.  You never look them in the eyes and you make sure your head is lowered, if you have to crawl on the floor to do it.  In a pack, privileges are earned and transgressions get you bitten."

Harry knelt down, keeping his head lowered.  What he wasn't expecting was for Lupin to suddenly latch onto his shoulders and roughly drag him close, burying his face in the nape of Harry's neck and sniffing deeply.

"It's okay," Sirius was saying.  "Let him do it.  He'll recognise you in a minute ...."

It took more than a minute, but eventually the death grip on his shoulders eased.  Lupin's voice was hoarse, as though he'd been screaming.

"Harry?"

"Yeah ...."

"What have you been up to?"

Ouch.  He hadn't been expecting that.  "Um ... nothing?"

Lupin let out a snort of rough laughter utterly unlike his usual chuckle.  "Right!"

Sirius's hand reached around them, putting a mug on the table in front of the other man.  "Tea, Remus."

Harry raised his eyes just enough to see Lupin's face; he was growing more human, for want of a better word, by the moment and right now he was grimacing at the herbal brew.  But he took the mug in an unsteady hand and gulped the liquid down, and some colour began to creep back into his face.

"Harry, put the kettle on for some ordinary tea, will you?" Sirius requested quietly.  "I need to help Remus upstairs."

"I can manage," Lupin snapped irritably, but he needed his partner's help to stand up and their progress towards the stairs was slow.

The tea was nearly brewed by the time Sirius returned.  He'd taken the time to have a sketchy wash and put on a clean robe and jeans, but he still looked exhausted.

"Is Ron awake?" he asked, helping Harry to set out the mugs, milk and sugar.

"I don't think so – "

"Then you need to wake him.  I promised Arthur he'd be home straight after breakfast."

"Okay."  But part of Harry was crying _too soon, too soon!_

Sirius's hand came down on the back of his neck, making him jump, but the older man only gave him an affectionate squeeze.  "Take him a cup of tea.  There's no need to rush."

"Will Remus be all right?" Harry asked after a moment.

"He'll be fine by this evening.  Don't worry."

"And you?"  It was the first time he'd ever bothered to ask.  The first time he'd even cared.

Sirius's smile was crooked.  "I'll be fine when I've had a couple of hours' sleep.  Go on – scram!  Back to bed.  You don't have to get up yet, either of you."

So Harry went back to his room, carrying two mugs of tea and a dish of milk for Rosebud. 

Ron was still soundly asleep when he got there, but Rosebud was awake and she made a great fuss of Harry when she saw he was bringing her breakfast.  Having settled her, Harry put the mugs on his bedside table and gave the snoring lump of blankets on the bed a firm push. 

"Ron."  No answer.  Harry gave him another push.  "Oy!  Ron!"

Ron grunted and hitched the blankets higher around his ears.  Harry rolled his eyes.  The Gryffindor clearly slept like the undead.  So Harry climbed onto the bed and over him, not bothering to be particularly careful, and peeled the covers down from the redhead's face.

"Wake up, Weasley!"

"Piss off, Finnigan," muttered Ron.

"Do you often sleep in Seamus Finnigan's bed?"

Ron's eyes suddenly snapped open and stared at him in a combination of astonishment, shock and – slowly dawning – shy pleasure.  "S'you!" he said sleepily.

"Yeah.  Give me some of the blankets, will you?  It's cold out here."

"Oh yeah - sorry."  Ron unwound himself from the covers and Harry slid underneath, pleased when Ron wrapped both the blankets and himself around him. 

"I brought you some tea," Harry told him.

"Yeah?  Why are you up so early?"

"Sirius and Remus came back.  Besides, you have to go home after breakfast."

"I know.  But that's not for a couple of hours, is it?"

"Nah, but we'd better not go back to sleep."

"That's okay."  Ron leered at him.  "I can think of better things to do."

Harry grinned.

 

*

 

The scene over breakfast amused Sirius, in spite of his exhaustion.  Watching Harry and Ron making eyes at each other over the table, while pretending all along that they weren't, was both touching and hilarious. 

Kids.  They all thought they invented it.

Eventually, though, he had to call time on the visit and chase Ron into the Floo.  Harry was inclined to brood over the sink full of dirty dishes after he was gone.

"Are you going to do much today?" Sirius asked him finally, as he washed up and Harry dried the plates.

"Oh ... um ... I thought I might look at my Potions homework."

Sirius nodded gravely, although he strongly doubted much homework would actually be done.  "Good idea.  Look, I'll probably crash for another hour or so.  Will you be okay?  I'd prefer it if you didn't go outside until one of us can come with you."

"I'll be fine," Harry replied, pulling himself together. 

"Good.  I'll be up and about by lunchtime, don't worry."

Observing the boy's rather abstracted nod, Sirius spared a sympathetic thought for Hedwig, who was surely going to get quite a workout over the next few days.

 

*

 

"Sirius," Lupin said, as sternly as he could manage.

Sirius paused in the doorway and looked back.  He'd just brought his partner lunch on a tray and wheedled him into eating the greater part of it.  The first twelve hours after the change were always rough and left to himself, Lupin wouldn't eat, drink or really take care of himself in any way.  His health had suffered badly during Sirius's period of incarceration in Azkaban.  And in spite of the extra care he got now, it still took until early evening for him to recover from a Change.

Lupin dredged up enough energy to crook a finger, though; the other man sighed ruefully and made his way back to the bed.

"Yes, love?"

"I may have been pretty out of it this morning," his partner said, "but I wasn't so far gone that I didn't recognise Ron Weasley's scent.  Did he stay the night?"

"It seemed like a good idea," Sirius replied.  The tiny smile lurking around the corners of his mouth said that he knew where this conversation was heading.  "Harry was a bit down; I thought he'd like the company."

"I'll bet," Lupin said dryly.  "Well, my sense of smell is pretty good just after the Change, especially when a young man reeking of sex is pushed under my nose.  A young man who, I would remind you, is still a minor."

"And your point is?"  Sirius looked his partner in the eye.  "I seem to recall being a minor myself when one of my best friends decided to seduce me."

"There's a world of difference between two horny teenagers finding a handy corner to screw in when the adults aren't looking, and two horny teenagers being aided and abetted by the adult who's supposed to be responsible for one of them," Lupin pointed out wearily.  "Molly Weasley will hang you out to dry, Sirius!"

"Molly will most likely never find out.  She was away and Arthur gave his permission for Ron to stay over.  Besides, Ron is over seventeen."

"That's hair-splitting and you know it."  Lupin sighed.  "Oh damn – there's no point in arguing about it, is there?"

"None whatsoever," Sirius said calmly.  "It's done and I'm not sorry, if that's what you're getting at.  Harry has so few good things in his life – he has a right to be happy with Ron if he can be."

"Fine."  A look of wry amusement entered Lupin's eyes.  "But if they've started this, then it's a fair bet they'll carry on.  And in that case we probably need to have a little chat with Harry."

Sirius eyed him warily.  "Meaning?"

"Meaning that Pomfrey's lectures have never covered gay sex, so it's our responsibility to make sure he's fully informed."

"Oh God."  Sirius pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment.  "I thought I'd got away with that.  Can't you - ?  I mean, you're the one with teaching experience."

"Oh no, you're not fobbing this off onto me!  I'm happy to help, but you're going to do your share."

"Lovely.  I can see him taking that _really_ well."

Lupin squeezed his hand tiredly.  "Doesn't have to be immediately.  We've got a few days.  I hope this sudden change in their relationship doesn't make things more complicated for him, though."

"It would anyway, whenever it happened," Sirius pointed out.  "Personally, I'm glad it happened here, in a totally safe place, instead of the pair of them taking a risk to find somewhere private to canoodle."

"There is that."  Lupin leaned back against the pillows, exhausted.  "We'll talk to him tomorrow, perhaps."

"Perhaps.  Like you said, we have a few days.  Don't worry about it for now - just rest."

"Can't do much else," Lupin grumbled and Sirius chuckled.

 **End Part 9/11**


	10. Chapter 10

**Part 10/11**

It rained for most of Tuesday, which left Harry with little to do but doodle on the messy beginnings of his Potions assignment and stare moodily out of whichever window was available at the time.  On Wednesday, however, the weather cleared a little and when Sirius's cousin Nymphadora (known to friends by her surname, Tonks) turned up after lunch on Auror business, Lupin hustled Harry into his cloak and took him outside for walk.

Harry wasn't at all reluctant to go with him.  Totally aside from his own inclination to mope, he wasn't comfortable in Tonks's company.  When he'd first met her two years previously he'd conceived the most embarrassing crush on her; embarrassing and confusing, since he'd been lusting with equal enthusiasm over Cho Chang at the time. 

Now, however, he felt uncomfortable for another reason, for he couldn't shake the idea that Lupin wasn't keen on her either.  The feeling had always been there and had been the subject of some speculation for Harry in the past.  Now that he knew Sirius and Remus were effectively married, he could pin it down; Tonks was simply too flirty and intimate with Sirius, and Lupin didn't like it.

Harry didn't like it either.  It made him feel weird and unsettled, for while one part of him was sure Sirius would _never_ act on Tonks's blatant invitations, and least of all right in front of Remus, another part - the cynical, hardened, world-weary part - recalled bitter, half-understood quarrels between his uncle and aunt about _that little tart_ and conversations he had overheard between kids from broken homes at his Muggle primary school.  Harry felt queasy at the idea that something like this might be going on right in the middle of his strange, surrogate family, but he tried to tell himself that it was none of his business really and even if it had been, there was no way for him to broach the subject with either man.  So instead he followed Lupin around as he checked on his plants in one of the greenhouses, and worried the problem inside his head morbidly.

Eventually they walked around to the other side of the house, past the long terrace in front of Black Manor's ballroom.  The tall windows on that side of the building were covered with heavy shutters; Harry tried, as he had done several times before, to press his nose to the cracks and see what was in there, but without success.

"What's it like in there?" he asked Lupin.  "Have you ever seen it?"

"Once, years ago.  It's dark, Victorian and, I think, rather ugly.  Probably full of dust, mildew and spiders now, of course.  Sirius says his parents and grandparents used to deck it out with dark velvet and not enough candles in the chandeliers."

"Why?"

"I imagine it was the fashion at the time."  Lupin tucked his hand into the crook of Harry's elbow and led him away.  "The drapes, that is; the lack of candles was probably because his father was a notorious skinflint."

Harry chuckled. 

"The ballroom at _your_ grandparents' house was decked out in velvet too the last Christmas we visited.  But Henry - your grandfather - never stinted on the lighting or the entertainment.  It always looked beautiful at the Rose House at Christmas."

"What happened to it?" Harry asked, hearing the wistful note in his godfather's voice.

Lupin glanced at him.  "Nothing.  It's still there.  That's one part of your inheritance you won't get until you're twenty-one, though."

"I didn't even know there was a house!" Harry said, a little indignantly.

"No, I know.  I must remind Sirius to talk to you about that.  You need to know the arrangements he's made in case anything happens to him between now and your birthday, and you need to know the restrictions on your parents' wills and the family entail.  I suspect we'll have to get the solicitors in to explain at some point … nearer your birthday perhaps."  He saw Harry's wide eyes and chuckled.  "You don't think your entire family's possessions were left to moulder while Sirius was in Azkaban, do you?  You have trustees, Harry."

"My aunt and uncle never told me any of this!"

"Your aunt and uncle didn't know.  A good thing too, don't you think?"

Harry couldn't argue with that.  If they'd known Harry was the heir to a sizeable estate, his uncle probably would have tied himself into knots trying to get his hands on the money.

Then, oddly, he wondered why his aunt hadn't realised.  She must have known what kind of family her sister was marrying into, surely?

The two of them crunched around the weed-infested gravel path and turned the corner of the house.  This side of the building, Lupin said after a moment, housed the library, a study and a couple of afternoon sitting rooms, as he recalled.  It only got the sun in the afternoon and early evening.  There was another squat little tower at the far end, matching Harry's, but there was an outside entrance in the base.

 Lupin, to Harry's mild surprise, walked up to this door and unlocked it with a big key, and led the way inside.  There was a small circular stone room with a door on either side.  He didn't hesitate but went straight to the door on the left which was old, covered in cobwebs and looked as though the lock had probably rusted shut.  A curious itch started across Harry's skin as he looked at it, similar to the sensation Sirius's illusion on the landing had given him, so it wasn't such a shock when Lupin touched the door to see the rust and cobwebs vanish.  Harry recognised a complex series of spells of the 'notice-me-not' concealing variety all over it and was impressed.

"What's in there?" he asked.

"A secret.  I assume you're capable of keeping important secrets?"

Harry decided not to take offence at this.  "If I couldn't keep secrets, I'd probably be dead by now," he said with a shrug, and didn't see Lupin's slightly pained reaction.  "So what is it?"

"The tools of my former profession," Lupin replied, recovering himself.  He produced another key from his trouser pocket and unlocked the door.  "Come and look."  He pushed it open and murmured a lighting charm.

The door opened onto a set of stairs that led down into a sizeable basement room that was full of shelves and storage chests and machinery.  Following him inside, Harry was at once struck by the unexpected even temperature of the place, compared to the chill outside.  Then the smell hit his nostrils - dust, the mustiness of paper and parchment, and the sour sharpness of ink.  Harry had never before seen one of the machines that was standing in front of him, but it didn't take much imagination to work out what it was.

"You were a _printer?_ "

"A Master Printer and Bookbinder," Lupin told him, smiling slightly at the boy's surprise.  "Well, I still am, of course - I'm just not allowed to practice my profession anymore."

Harry stared at the press in amazement.  "I had no idea.  What could they have against you being a printer, though?"

"You might as well ask what they have against me practising any number of professions, Harry.  I could understand them banning me from bookbinding, perhaps, because wizard bookbinders have a very responsible position in our society - "

"You're one of the most responsible people I know!"

Lupin gave him a sudden, wicked smile that Harry had never seen before.  "I can think of a number of people who would disagree with you on that, and none of them would be thinking about my lycanthropy when they said it!"

Harry suspected he was referring to his father and he stared at him, rather bemused.  "I always thought you were the sensible one," he said.

"You've been listening to Sirius.  Compared to him, I _was_ the sensible one."  Lupin ran a hand gently over the edge of the press.  "Anyway, they don't let me print anymore.  Or do much of anything really.  But it goes against the grain to let my press fall into disrepair."

Harry looked at him uncertainly.  "You do other work that's illegal.  Couldn't … I mean, someone would hire you, wouldn't they?"

"Yes," Lupin replied dryly.  "Death Eaters and other unsavoury individuals would probably hire me, if I was willing to be hired by them.  One never knows where that sort of thing will lead, though."

"Oh."

The older man looked up and smiled slightly at the boy's expression.  "Dumbledore hired me last year to do repair work on some of the books in the libraries at Hogwarts.  Rebinding the books in the Faculty Reference Archive is delicate work."

Harry hadn't known that, but he hadn't really made much effort before to find out what his guardians did when he was at school.  "You don't do that anymore?"

"No - someone told the Board of Governors and I got sacked.  Again."

 _Snape_ , Harry thought resentfully.  Although he supposed it could just as easily have been someone like Lucius Malfoy.  All it needed was a rumour in the student body and Draco would have been sure to find out and tell his father.

"Anyway," Lupin said, with a sigh.  "I thought I would oil the moving parts on this today, just to be sure everything's still in working order.  It's a fairly heavy job - would you mind giving me a hand?"

Harry didn't mind at all.  It was something to do.  He took his cloak off and rolled up his sleeves, and they set to work.

"So if they know you're a printer, why is this a secret?" he asked as Lupin began to remove a series of preservation charms surrounding the printing press.

"Because I was supposed to dismantle the press and get rid of my equipment.  Which I did," he added, glancing at Harry.  "One of the presses, anyway - the smaller one my father bought for me.  Flitwick's got it up at Hogwarts, which is where it started life anyway.  Your mother and I ran the school newspaper through sixth and seventh year.  _This_ one, though, Sirius helped me buy after we left school.  The Ministry never knew I had it, since it was purchased via a friend of a friend, and it ended up stored quietly away in an old lock-up Sirius rented to keep his bike in.  When we came to live here after he was exonerated, we brought the press out of storage and hid it here."

Harry glanced around the vast room, which looked like it might be part of the basement.  Magical paper and parchment had a peculiar feel to it all of its own - something he had noticed from the first day Hagrid took him into Diagon Alley, but which he had only recently discovered most wizards didn't seem able to sense.  There were a number of wide, wooden storage chests with many shallow drawers around the edge of the room, each with specialist spells on them to preserve paper in prime printing condition, and they were mostly full, as were the two barrels of printer's ink in the corner. 

Keeping the printing press in good working order was one thing.  Keeping full stocks of printing supplies was something else entirely.

Harry wondered then if Lupin would lie to him.  While he didn't have much of a problem with the concept of falsehood himself (in Harry's experience everyone lied and, generally speaking, it was simply a matter of degree and necessity), until now he'd ranked his quieter godfather among those whose principles tended to exclude it.  Then he reconsidered their conversation and realised that nothing Lupin had said to him could be considered a lie _per se_ , but more a sin of omission if anything.

Interesting.

All the evidence suggested that Lupin was still printing in defiance of the law, and if he wouldn't print for Death Eaters and the like, then he must be working for the Order of the Phoenix.  Which was even more interesting.  What could the Order be doing that needed a printer and bookbinder?  Propaganda?  That seemed a little risky to Harry, since officially the Order didn't even exist.

"You and I need to set aside a little time today to work on your mental shielding," Lupin said, interrupting his speculation.  "We should have done it before, really, but I wasn't in much of a frame of mind to help you.  How's the Occlumency working at the moment?"

"I'm not sure," Harry replied reluctantly. 

"Are you sleeping properly?"

Actually, he was.  Apart from the nightmare that Ron had awoken him from on Monday, he was sleeping remarkably peacefully.  Of course, it helped that he had a lot of new and interesting things to think about when he went to bed.  Relaxation wasn't a problem at the moment.

Harry had a sudden and horrible thought.  "Remus … they won't go after Ron, will they?"

Lupin considered the question for a moment or two as he wiped his hands on a rag.  "It's possible," he said finally.  "Depends on how much they know about the two of you.  They've probably already discovered you're friends, but a little discretion would be in order, Harry, just the same.  And under the circumstances, we really _do_ need to work on your shielding.  Let's lock everything down tight and deny our old friend any opportunities."

"But Ron - should he - ?"

The older smiled slightly.  "I wouldn't fret for now.  The Weasleys are already well protected and Arthur and Molly are no slouches.  And as I said - the best protection Ron can have is for _you_ to keep things locked inside your own head."

 _Discretion_ , Harry thought glumly.  How discreet would be discreet enough?

 

*

 

The afternoon was spent lying on his back on the rug in the sitting room, trying to rebuild his mental shields.  Harry hadn't realised just how bad things were until Lupin and Sirius took it in turns to mentally 'nudge' him and his shields collapsed at the lightest touch. 

As Voldemort's usual modus operandi was more like a punch with a lead glove, it was frightening to say the least. 

Fixing the damage meant going back to basics; rediscovering his own inner self, grounding his magic in the earth, closing his mind to outside influences.  Lupin talked him through the process of 'putting himself into a box' mentally and encouraged him to take an internal inventory so that he had a reasonable idea of what was 'Harry' and what wasn't.

Then they went through the mental nudging process again, looking for weaknesses in the new shields.  At the end of it, all three of them were wrung out and Lupin didn't even have the satisfaction of knowing the job was wholly effective.  Neither he nor Sirius was a good enough Legilimens to give Harry's shields they testing they really needed, so they would have to wait now until the boy was back within reach of Severus Snape before finding out if the work they had done was enough.

Dinner was soup, a meal which Harry ate with reluctance after this stressful session and lost again within ten minutes of getting up from the table.  Sirius made him go to bed and as a precautionary measure gave him a half-dose of Dreamless Sleep potion.

"I think we'll tackle the sex education lecture tomorrow," Lupin said wryly, when his partner returned from the tower.

"Thank God for that," Sirius muttered.  In defiance of their usual rule about caffeinated drinks in the evening, he made a stiff pot of coffee and added a measure of firewhiskey to each mug; Lupin accepted it with gratitude.

"I showed Harry my press earlier," he said, as he cupped his hands around the heat of the mug.

"What for?"  Sirius frowned.

"I don't know - I suppose I wondered how he'd react.  And …."  Lupin smiled wryly for a moment.  "I suppose I was thinking about Dad's old press up at Hogwarts.  They haven't run a proper school newspaper since we left, you know."

"Indoctrination!" Sirius remarked, his dark tone belied by the mischievous lift of his brows.  "Trying to make a printer out of our boy, Remus?  What would the Ministry say?"

"There are worse professions he could take up, Sirius, and that one at least has the advantage of being remarkably harmless in the eyes of the general populace.  Besides, _someone_ needs to be thinking about his future beyond how lethal to Voldemort we can make him."

"Someone _is_ thinking about it," Sirius retorted.  "Believe it or not, _Harry_ is thinking about it.  Ron has fired him up with tales of derring-do in far places and now he wants to become a curse-breaker."

Lupin's look of ludicrous surprise sent him off into fits of laughter.

"That's put _me_ in my place, hasn't it!  I had no idea."

"Neither did I until I heard the two of them talking about it the other morning.  Bill Weasley's coming home from Egypt at the end of July and I think the two of them are hoping for an opportunity to pump him for information."  Sirius sobered for a moment.  "It's a nice ambition," he said judiciously, "but …."

"But possibly not the wisest course for him?"

"I'm wondering if Gringotts would hire him."  Sirius's mouth thinned.  "Or if anyone would, if I'm completely honest."

"Another good reason to steer him into an independent profession, if possible," Lupin said quietly.  "But in all seriousness, I wasn't especially thinking of that when I showed him the press.  I was thinking that it wouldn't hurt him to have another interest besides Quidditch and Ron when he goes back to Hogwarts.  He broods too much, Sirius, he needs an occupation."

Sirius studied the pattern on his mug rather intently for a moment or two before saying carefully, "You're thinking about James, aren't you?"

Lupin let out a gusty sigh.  "Yes.  Yes, I'm thinking about James and specifically about how focussed he became upon Lily.  He could have done with a hobby besides Quidditch and pranking, too.  I'm pretty sure the only reason he didn't drive Lily away was because being Head Boy took up so much of his spare time.  Sometimes I wonder if Dumbledore gave him the badge for exactly that reason."

"I seem to recall you telling me that Harry isn't really so much like James."

"That doesn't mean there are no similarities at all.  I worry that he'll become focussed upon Ron to a degree that Ron can't handle.  Aside from all the normal problems that would cause, we have to consider the effect on Harry's eavesdropper.  He asked me today if Voldemort's people would go after Ron now.  If they realise how attached Harry is to him, that's a frightening probability."

"That could happen anyway," Sirius pointed out.

"But there's no reason to make him a target any sooner than we have to.  If Harry has other things to concentrate on, that can only be positive."

"And not just for Ron."  Sirius looked up at the ceiling meditatively for a moment.  "Having something else to focus upon might keep him out of trouble.  Nobody's said this directly, of course, but now young Malfoy's out of the way, there's a power vacuum in Slytherin.  Remember what it was like when Lucius left Hogwarts when we were kids?  Andromeda told me the entire House was polarised until Rosier stepped in and took his place.  Slytherin isn't like the other houses – it's a fiefdom, a petty little dictatorship."

"A pack of jackels, more like," Lupin said softly, and his eyes were sombre when Sirius looked at him.  "The strongest, the most vicious, the most cunning sits at the top of the heap, but only for as long as he can beat off the other contenders.  And everyone in the pack waits for him to show weakness."

"I worry what will happen to Harry when the new 'king' claims his throne," Sirius said.

Lupin worried more that Harry would try to claim the throne himself, but he decided not to plant the seeds of anxiety about _that_ in his partner's mind. 

"Harry's well able to look after himself," he made himself say instead, "and he won't thank you for thinking he can't.  Concentrate on the things you _can_ help him with - you might start by telling him the provisions of your will, before he goes back to school and it's too late."

 

*

 

Sirius left talking to Harry about his will until Thursday, though, and instead told the boy to concentrate on his homework.  At any other time Harry might have rebelled against such a command, but he was guiltily conscious of just how much time had been wasted already and he still had the all-important Potions essay to write if he wanted any chance of persuading Professor Snape to let him sit the NEWT exam.

"When we tackle the main part of this damn house, I'll make the library a priority," Sirius told him, watching him struggle with a less-than-adequate textbook at one point (somehow his potions textbook had been left at school).  "What my grandfather didn't know about Potions wasn't worth knowing.  All his books are in there."

"Snape would have got on all right with him then," Harry muttered, not raising his head.

"Of course.  That's why he got into Potions in the first place - he was thick as inkleweavers with the old man."

Harry had forgotten Snape and Sirius were cousins.  It was just too weird.  But when he looked up, his godfather only gave him a wry smile and went back to what he was doing.

Harry toiled over the roll of parchment until mid-afternoon, when Lupin came in and firmly separated him from his books, making him eat a late lunch and then chasing him outside for some fresh air.  When he returned to the house for dinner, both men were waiting for him.

Sirius spoke first, looking deeply uncomfortable. 

"Remus just reminded me that we need to have a little chat about something important, Harry," he said.

Statements like that never boded any good for the listener in Harry's experience and he eyed the two of them with foreboding.

 

*

 

Two hours later, he lay on his bed staring up at the canopy in shock.

That had quite possibly been the most embarrassing conversation he'd ever had.  Harry was sure that at some point - maybe in a hundred years or so _-_ this would all seem terribly funny; Sirius's acute misery alone would render it memorable, for he had surely been just as embarrassed, if not more so, than his godson. 

Harry just had to get over his own mortification first, before he could start laughing.

He couldn't believe the pair of them had waylaid him to talk about … _that_.  It wasn't as though he hadn't had all the compulsory lectures at school, and okay, so Madam Pomfrey hadn't gone into that sort of detail, but still ….

Harry squirmed.

He'd had a vague sort of idea of what two blokes did together, especially after his interesting night with Ron, but he'd never really thought about it in any detail or even imagined what it would be like.  And he really didn't need it spelled out quite so bluntly by Sirius and Remus, of all people, especially as ….  He shuddered, dismayed, and screwed his eyes shut.  _Oh my God, do_ they _do that?_   That was definitely much, much more than he ever wanted to know about their sex lives.

It was only a step beyond that, however, to wonder if Ron would want to do something similar with him.  The thought shocked him into stillness for a moment.  In spite of his appalled reaction to the unwanted information, Harry was disconcerted to realise that the idea took on a whole different shape when it was him and his own partner in question.

But Ron wouldn't go for something like that … would he?  Did he even know about it?  What if he didn't?

Harry tried to imagine himself telling Ron about it, and quailed.  What if the redhead thought he was a pervert?  Suddenly Harry could feel a little sympathy for Sirius.  He really couldn't see himself spelling it out for anyone else; it was hard enough for him to think about it.

Abruptly he sat up and, gathering his courage, went back downstairs.  Sirius and Lupin were still in the sitting room, the latter calmly relaxing on the sofa with a magazine open on his lap while Sirius fidgeted with the curtains at the window.  They both looked up when Harry walked in and for a moment he thought Sirius might collapse into a heap of nerves.  The situation was silly enough that Harry felt himself relaxing just a tiny bit.

"Um …." he began uneasily.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Lupin asked, very direct.

"I was wondering if, you know … there was a book."  It was hard to get this out without mumbling but he managed it, although it came across as rather defensive instead.  It was even harder to look either man in the eye as he said it, but he pushed on.  "Muggles have books about it.  I think I'd, um, rather read about it.  If you don't mind."

The subtext was obvious: _Anything to avoid having another 'talk' like that one._

After a moment, Sirius managed to find his own voice, although it was rather weak.  "There are a few.  I'll see if I can get you one."

"Thanks."

There was a sticky pause.  Then Lupin gave in to his growing amusement.

"If the pair of you are planning to die of embarrassment, could you just get on with it already?  I'd really like to eat my dinner _tonight._ "

"Bastard," Sirius said feelingly.

 

*

 

"I suspect Remus was referring to the arrangements I've made for you in case anything happens to me between now and your birthday," Sirius said to Harry the following morning as they took a slow walk around the gardens together.  "Obviously I hope it won't become necessary for them to be implemented, but he's right – you should know what will happen if I keel over unexpectedly."

Harry was grateful for the studied lightness with which Sirius said this.  He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to have this conversation any more than the one that had been forced upon him the night before, because the possibility that Sirius might die sometime in the near future was something he didn't think he could face directly without things becoming uncomfortably emotional.  For some obscure, barely recognised reason, it was still important to Harry that he face his godparents with at least the outward appearance of detachment.  He felt that he had shown too many weaknesses lately.

"As the law currently stands," Sirius continued after a moment, "there's no way in hell Remus can take guardianship of you, and I'm not even going to try it – that's how you ended up with the Dursleys last time.  Instead, I made arrangements some time ago for my cousin Andromeda and her husband to take legal guardianship of you if anything happened to me before you reached seventeen."

"I – I don't know her," Harry said warily.  For some reason, he hadn't been expecting this.  Actually, he'd been expecting Sirius to say that he'd named Professor Dumbledore as his guardian, which would certainly have made sense.

"She's been here a few times, and you know her daughter Tonks of course." 

With a real effort Harry dredged up a vague memory of a rather elegant dark-haired witch who, along with a number of other people, had come to dinner last summer.  He'd been in a full-blown anti-social, rebellious phase at the time, post the Tri-Wizard Tournament and Cedric Diggory's death, and hadn't been at all inclined to meet new people.  He didn't think he'd actually been rude to anyone – as he'd once told Ron, he'd learned at a very early age to be superficially polite even to people he detested – but he knew he hadn't been very friendly either.  He hadn't wanted to socialise with his godparents' friends.

So that was Tonks's mother?  She didn't look old enough, but that was nothing unusual with witches and wizards.

"Do I really not have any other wizard relatives?" Harry asked, and at once cursed himself for sounding so plaintive.  He'd been aiming for 'detached' and 'curious', but it was difficult to maintain the pretence with Sirius these days.

"Yes," his godfather replied dryly.  "Severus Snape."

Now _that_ was a truly hair-raising idea.  "Please tell me you're joking!"

"Not at all.  He's as near a relative as Andromeda or Narcissa.  I told you before, all the pureblood families are so interrelated that it'd be impossible to disentangle the family trees."  Sirius saw his face and grinned.  "I wouldn't worry about it.  The fact is, many of the pureblood families are running short of descendents.  The Malfoys are a case in point, they've produced nothing but single sons in the last four or five generations, and the same was true of the Potters.  You're the latest in a string of only children – you have no wizard cousins because there was no one to produce them.  Which I suppose brings us back to the point of this conversation."

Sirius dug his hands into his pockets and looked out across the overgrown mayhem that had once been a well-manicured formal garden.  "Suppose I drop dead tomorrow.  Remus can't inherit _anything_ from me – not your guardianship, not the roof over his head, not the money in my bloody bank vault.  Guardianship of you goes to Andromeda and Ted.  All my assets that are legally mine alone, and not counted as family property, go to you but are held in trust until you're twenty-one.  Andromeda is one of your trustees; Dumbledore is another. 

"The entailed Black family property is another matter.  I'm the last male heir of my family, which creates a problem.  I've talked to my lawyer, and _technically_ as I'm the last heir the physical property – this house, the house in Grimmauld Place and any family heirlooms – should go to my designated heir, which is you.  But it has to be ratified by the Wizengamot and any other potential heirs, including Snape, can challenge it.  It's a pretty fair bet that Narcissa Malfoy would challenge it on behalf of Draco.  They'd love to get their hands on this miserable heap, and evict you and Remus into the bargain."

"But that would happen whether I was of age or not, wouldn't it?" Harry remarked.

"Well yes, but apart from making sure you're in safe hands, it's not really you I'm worried about."

"Oh.  But if I was of age, Remus would come and live with me."

This seemed so obvious and unquestionable that Harry was genuinely bemused when Sirius seized him and pulled him into a fierce hug.

"You're a good kid."

"I'm not a kid," he grumbled, uncomfortable with both the embrace and the compliment, and he wrestled himself free.  "I like Remus, that's all."  And before Sirius could overreact to that as well, he hastily added, "And none of this would be a problem if you had kids of your own."

"Don't you start on that too!  Besides, if you think this is bad, you don't want to know how complicated it would be if I left a baby behind.  Wizard wars have been started over less."

"Don't worry, I'd raise him to be a good Slytherin," Harry said provocatively.

Sirius cuffed him lightly.  "You're leaving out the other half of the equation: for me to have a son, there'd have to be a mother."

Now the devil really did get into Harry.  "I was under the impression that Tonks was more than willing."

He couldn't think what made him say it, let alone in that tone of voice which wasn't nearly as teasing as he'd intended.  He knew at once that he'd gone too far, though, although Sirius didn't react for several long moments.  That was more than long enough for Harry's shoulders to hunch defensively in expectation of an outburst that never came.

Sirius gave him a long look, before saying levelly, "We may be a bunch of inbred throwbacks, Harry, but technically that's incest."

He turned on his heel and walked back towards the house without waiting for the teenager to follow.

 

*

 

They'd quarrelled before, but this was the first time Harry was unsure of just how bad the damage was.  It was also the first time he would admit to himself that he cared.

It was such an unfamiliar situation that he wasn't entirely sure what to do about it.  In the past he would simply have ignored it, or braced himself for the next argument.  This time he was in the wrong, knew himself to be in the wrong, and felt bad about it. 

It wasn't part of Harry's natural _modus operandi_ to apologise, though.  Which wasn't to say that he _didn't_ apologise when the situation merited it – he had learned early on in Slytherin that a well-worded, well-presented apology could be worth a dozen insults – but he'd been taught early in his life that even genuine apologies didn't make much difference.

What he had done, he had done.  Nothing for it but to suck it up and take the consequences.

The only problem this time was that the consequences were unlikely to be a slap and an order to clean the house.  Sirius and Remus didn't operate that way.

Harry was sitting on his bed nearly an hour later, wishing rather desperately for Ron's company or even just a message from the redhead, when Lupin tapped perfunctorily on his door and walked inside.  One quick glance at him told Harry that his godfather was furious.  It wasn't an obvious thing; just something in the stillness and restraint of the way he held his body, and the cool precision of his voice when he spoke.

"Might I ask what provoked that little outburst?"

Harry focussed on a knot in the wood of his wardrobe, unable to meet Lupin's eyes.  He shrugged, reduced to adolescent silence by the confrontation.

"You're not twelve years old anymore, Harry," the older man said sharply.  "I'd like a proper answer to the question, please."

That made the old, familiar anger fizz in his chest.  "I don't like her," he snapped back.

"Whether or not you like Nymphadora Tonks is irrelevant, as well you know."  There was a pause.  "I suppose you picked up the tactic of _divide and conquer_ from some of your housemates.  What I fail to understand is why you chose to use it now on Sirius and me."

Harry's eyes flew to his face, for once genuinely shocked by such an accusation.  "I didn't - I wouldn't …."

"Wouldn't you?"  Lupin's expression was coolly sceptical, tweaking Harry's indignation a little higher.

"I wasn't trying to cause a row between you two!"

"Really?  Then what _were_ you trying to do?"

It seemed so pathetically inadequate to say it, and Harry had to look away again.  "I was just joking," he muttered sullenly.

Lupin didn't let him off the hook.  "Then I don't think much of your sense of humour.  I've never considered you stupid, Harry, but it seems I credited you with too much insight when I believed you had guessed that Tonks's behaviour towards Sirius makes things uncomfortable for the two of us.  Particularly as Sirius has to work with her."

"I guessed, but – "

"But you thought you'd tease him about it anyway?"

Harry flushed a dull, uncomfortable red.

Lupin's lips tightened.  "I had hoped that you'd got over this need to lash out at us, and at Sirius in particular, whenever you were feeling a little out of sorts; I had hoped that the three of us were coming to a better understanding.  But now I wonder."

Harry was aghast.  "I didn't mean anything by it!"

The older man gave him a long, appraising look.  "Perhaps you didn't … _this_ time.  But you'll have to forgive me, Harry, if I find it a little difficult recognising the difference between an attack that you mean to hurt and one that you don't.  You see, from this side of things they look remarkably similar."

Silence.

"I'm sorry," Harry muttered finally.  "But I wasn't trying to hurt anyone's feelings, I just wanted – "

He was sharply cut off. 

"It's not me you have to apologise to.  And I feel constrained to point out that even if it was, I wouldn't be interested in hearing an apology that included self-justification.  Because an apology like that is no apology at all, wouldn't you agree?"

"Remus – "

"No, Harry.  You're nearly seventeen years old and it's time you grew up – preferably before someone takes advantage of that volatile temper of yours to ensure that you never will."

 

*

 

"I shouldn't have said that," Lupin said quietly, as short while later.  "It's not that I didn't mean every word of it, but to say something like that to him when I was in a temper – I've always sworn to myself that I wouldn't do that."

"Maybe so," Sirius said, "but it's not a complete disaster.  He should know that you have lines he shouldn't cross as well.  I think that's part of our problem - we've been too ready to be patient and understanding when he throws his weight around, but he's just a kid after all and kids take advantage."

"Is that what happened today?"

"No.  I don't think it was."

They looked at each other, and if anything Lupin felt even more wretched under Sirius's understanding eyes.  He wanted to damn Harry for having shown up a side of his character that he wasn't at all proud of, but that would be unfair.  Harry was only reacting in his own particular manner to the situation as he saw it, whatever that might be.  From the look of things, Sirius for once understood what was going on in the teenager's head better than his partner did.

"He made a tasteless joke, Sirius.  He saw there was a situation between us over Tonks and decided to – "

"No.  I think he saw there was a _situation_ , as you call it, and misconstrued it entirely."

Lupin blinked at him for a moment, then fell back on his normal stress routine of putting the kettle on the stove to make tea.  "I'm not sure I follow you," he said over his shoulder.

"I'm saying that I think it's less to do with me and you, and more to do with me and Tonks."  Sirius rubbed his eyes tiredly for a moment, then got up from the table and went to the cupboard above Lupin's head to reach down one of the many different tea caddies in there.  "Well, you were the one who pointed out that I'm Daddy in this household as far as Harry's concerned."

"Any time you feel like speaking plain English," Lupin replied dryly, recovering a little of his poise.

Sirius spooned tealeaves into the pot.  "Do you remember Julian Cradditch, that Muggleborn kid in Gryffindor a year below us?"

"Vaguely, but I don't see – "

"He had a really bad year the year we took our OWLs – lots of trouble at home.  Had an hysterical fit over the mail at breakfast one morning and spent a couple of days with Pomfrey in the infirmary."

Lupin's face lightened.  "Now that you mention it, I _do_ remember.  God, poor lad – he was always so stressed just before the school holidays."

"His father had an eye for the ladies," Sirius said dryly.  "It caused all sorts of trouble at home, and that letter he got was from his mother, telling him he couldn't go home for the Christmas holidays because his father had thrown her and his little sister out of the house so he could move his latest fancy piece in.  She was living in some kind of women's refuge until she could find a permanent place to live."

"How the hell did you find that out?" demanded Lupin, staring at him in astonishment.

Sirius shrugged.  "I bullied one of his mates into telling me a bit about it and thought it might help if I talked to him, seeing as my dad had mistresses all over the place as well and I thought I knew how it felt.  Boy, was that an eye-opener though.  It wasn't the same thing at all."

"No, I suppose it wasn't," Lupin said, still regarding him with a fascinated eye.  "You know, I can't imagine your mother putting up with it."

"That's a whole different story.  The point is, Moony, we were seeing things from totally different perspectives.  The kind of thing he was going through just doesn't happen in the pureblood wizard families.  Think about the marriage contracts and family networks we all live with.  My father could never have done anything like that, even if he'd wanted to – the scandal alone would have ruined us.  Philander, yes, but throw everything away on a cheap tart?  Impossible.  When was the last time you heard of a big name divorce?  It wouldn't happen, because it would bankrupt even a Malfoy."

"So what does this have to do with Harry?"

Sirius sighed.  "It has to do with his upbringing.  Because he's James's son, lives with us and goes to Hogwarts, we think of him as a wizard.  But he was raised exactly the same way as any Muggleborn kid, Moony, and he probably thinks like a Muggle quite a lot of the time.  When he saw how Tonks was behaving, and your reaction to it, I think maybe he jumped to the conclusion that I was having an affair with her under your nose and it made him feel insecure."

"Well, you have to admit that it's not an unreasonable conclusion when you see how she behaves around you," Lupin said, and he drew in a sharp, vexed breath.  He hadn't meant to say that.  "Sorry."

"That's _Harry's_ excuse," Sirius said mildly.  "What's yours?"

"Mine is that I'm an irrationally jealous prat in spite of knowing you'd never do anything like that."

"I like it when you're brutally honest about yourself.  She _is_ annoying and it's getting more than a little tiresome.  Besides, if it's starting to set Harry off, then she must be becoming more obvious."

"He said he didn't like her," Lupin remarked.  "That's a bit of a turnaround, considering that he couldn't take his eyes off her eighteen months ago.  If I'm being purely selfless and noble, I have to admit that I find it worrying, because he's going to see a lot of her and the other Order members shortly and the last thing we need is for him to be uncooperative towards one particular person."

"I like your irrationally jealous side better.  It's unnerving living with selfless nobility."

"You live with Harry too," Lupin pointed out.  "There's no selfless nobility in him."

"Make the tea," Sirius told him, grinning.  "I don't sleep with Harry.  But since I do share a house with both of you, I think it's time I had a chat with Tonks."  In spite of himself, he grimaced.

His partner gave him a commiserating look.  "It seems to be your week for it, Padfoot."

 

*

 

Since Harry seemed hell-bent on wallowing in his misery - or ill-temper – Sirius let him stew for a while.  Instead of trying to thrash matters out immediately, and thereby probably playing into his godson's apparent masochistic desire to live in strife, he took himself off to Diagon Alley to run a few errands.  Lupin, meanwhile, had business of his own in a certain basement room, and was not entirely displeased to have an excuse to avoid the teenager.

Consequently, Harry spent a very lowering day alone in his tower, especially as owling messages to Ron was slow and his access to the Floo, even for firecalling, was restricted.

By late afternoon he was sick of his own company and almost ready to pick another fight with one of the men just for the sake of human contact.  It was a strange feeling; only a short while ago this had been how he spent large portions of every holiday with them.  Now he wondered how he had survived it.  It was depressing.

And yet pride made him stick to his room when dinner rolled around once more.  He had mired himself so deeply now that he didn't know how to get out of the situation gracefully.  To make things worse, the savoury smell drifting up the stairs suggested that Lupin had made his special sausage hot-pot, a dish Harry was particularly partial to.

He was still writhing on the horns of his dilemma when there was a rap on the door and Sirius walked in.

"Dinner's nearly ready," his godfather said in his usual amiable tone.

Harry looked at him uncertainly.  Sirius wasn't acting like someone who'd been mortally offended a few hours ago.  He had a package tucked under his arm and when he saw Harry looking, he stepped forward and held it out.

"Got you something in Diagon Alley."

Harry accepted the parcel warily and pulled the brown paper off it.  It was a bulky hardcover book, unusually with no lettering on the spine.  He could imagine what it was. 

"Is … is Flourish and Blotts going to open again, then?" he asked hesitantly. 

"When they've rebuilt the shop.  Fortunately, the bulk of their stock was stored below ground and they can operate out of rented premises for the time being.  That book didn't come from Flourish and Blotts though."  Sirius gave him a crooked smile.  "They don't sell books like that."

"Oh.  Thanks."

"You're welcome.  Are you coming down to dinner?"

It seemed like such a loaded question, and Harry didn't know how to answer it.  Sirius saw the look on his face and sighed inwardly.

"No one's going to attack you with a serving spoon, you know."  Harry looked away, so he decided to push the issue by going to sit opposite him in the window seat.  "I'm not angry with you, if that's what you're wondering.  Neither is Remus – actually, he's mortified more than anything.  He prides himself on not losing his temper."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.  So it's kind of startling when he does.  You caught us both in a sensitive spot, that's all."  Sirius sighed again.  "It's not entirely your fault."

Harry glanced sideways at him and ventured a cautious smile.  "'Not entirely'?"

His godfather snorted.  "Well, there _are_ more tactful ways to ask if I'm having a sordid fling with a girl I dandled on my knees when she was a baby."  The beginning of a grin quirked the corner of his mouth.  "My scabby, teenaged knees, but even so."

Harry frowned.  "So why does she act like that around you?"

"Because I'm irresistible," Sirius said promptly, and pretended to look offended when Harry sniggered derisively.  "If you dare suggest I'm too old to be anyone's lust-object, I'll murder you and leave your broken body in a ditch somewhere.  Life doesn't end at thirty, you know!  And some women like older men."

Harry was still frowning though.  "Doesn't she know about you and Remus?"

"Ah …."  Sirius rubbed his ear, beginning to feel embarrassed.  "She does, but … I'm reliably informed that some women find that kind of thing interesting."  Then he began to laugh.  Harry's face was screwed up in dismay.

"That's … ugh!"  Harry shuddered.  "Don't invite her for Christmas.  I'll never be able to look her in the face again."

Sirius chortled helplessly, and slapped his ward's knee.  "Come on - dinner!  Remus didn't make casserole just because he has a sausage fetish!"

He yelped as Harry punched his arm.

 **End Part 10/11**


	11. Chapter 11

**Part 11/11**

Harry had mixed feelings about religion.

He was nominally a Christian, but that didn't really mean much to him.  His Aunt Petunia was a semi-regular churchgoer and member of the Mother's Union at the Little Whinging parish church, St. Michael's, which was, naturally, a very upstanding bastion of the Church of England.  As far as Harry could tell, it was less a matter of faith on his aunt's part and more of an opportunity to meet her friends and look good.  At least once a year, at Christmas, Uncle Vernon and Dudley would be bullied into dressing in their best clothes and dragged to the Christingle service.  Harry invariably spent such occasions with old Mrs. Figg, and he couldn't say he was particularly sorry to do so. 

Finding out that he had a godfather had told him (when he thought about it) that he had at least been baptised, but it still didn't mean anything to Harry.  All sorts of people got Christened, and in the corner of English suburbia he had come from that only meant that someone in the household had thought it was the thing to do.  But one of the first things Remus had done when he went to live with his two godparents was to grill him about his religious education, mutter darkly about Muggle morals, and announce that he ought to be confirmed.  It was only then that Harry discovered he had been baptised an Omnis Arcanum Christian - the Wizard Orthodox Church.

This was rather enlightening.  It certainly explained why, after Harry had started attending Hogwarts, his aunt had taken to muttering about happy-clappy cult-worshippers, heathens and devil's work.  It might even explain why, even after a visit from the vicar, she had refused to take Harry to the local parish church. 

Still, left to himself he wouldn't have thought any more about it, except that it turned out that Sirius and Remus were regular attendees at the Church of the Holy Bones, which was the nearest wizard parish church and which the Blacks had been benefactors of for centuries.  Attendance, at the very least for important services, was not up for discussion.

Harry still wasn't confirmed, although it wasn't for want of trying on the parts of both Remus and the parish priest.  Having had no contact with the Church since his baptism Harry knew nothing about it whatsoever, which meant intensive study.  And since he wasn't especially motivated to learn, he hadn't got very far yet.  He attended confirmation classes during every school holiday but, as with attending services, this was only because he hadn't yet succeeded in getting out of it.

"I don't get how wizards can be Christians anyway," he had protested at one point.  "I thought the Bible says witchcraft is evil?"

Remus had an answer for that.  (Remus, it sometimes seemed to Harry, had answers for almost anything.)  He immediately brought out his worn family Bible and explained at tedious length how there were different versions of the Bible and it was really all a matter of translation.  The lecture had not impressed fourteen-year-old Harry.

"Lots of people at school are pagans," he tried on another occasion.  This was certainly true; White Goddess pagans made up the larger part of the wizard community.  "Can't I just do that?"

"That's fine," Lupin had replied calmly.  "I'll introduce you to the High Priestess and at the next solstice you can strip naked in front of a dozen witnesses and make your oath to the Goddess."

"Naked?" Harry squeaked.

"Naked," Lupin confirmed.  "In the open air, at a suitable holy site."

"They call it 'going skyclad'," Sirius added helpfully.  "And by the way, there's an oath-breaker's curse thrown in, to ensure you're not messing around."

"I don't see why I can't just be an atheist," the teenager had grumbled.  "It's not like I believe in God anyway."

"Voldemort is an atheist," Sirius told him, in a deadly voice that suggested he'd better not try that approach again.

It was certainly an interesting piece of information, though.

So Voldemort didn't believe in God?  More to the point, as an atheist Voldemort presumably didn't believe in _any_ god, and from what Harry could see, that was a rather odd position for any wizard to take.  Certain elements of magic, certain advanced incantations, required the practitioner to call upon saints, angels, deities and (especially in Dark magic) even demons or devils.  And it wasn't enough simply to say the names – the speaking had to be imbued with a certain amount of belief in the entity's existence in the first place, or the magic wouldn't work.

More likely, Harry thought, it wasn't a case of Voldemort not believing in God or a god.  He thought it was more likely that Voldemort, like Harry himself, had come to the conclusion that if there _was_ a god, He/She/It didn't give a damn about humans, magical or otherwise.  And having encountered a version of Voldemort's earlier self, Harry had a certain unwanted empathy with the former Tom Riddle's reasoning behind that conclusion.

On that basis, he accepted that he wasn't _really_ an atheist himself.  But since trying to explain his position on the subject to Sirius or Remus would not only be lengthy, tedious, and possibly counter-productive – not to mention involving unwanted discussions into his reasons behind that position – Harry wasn't about to retract his statement.

Which meant that on Easter Sunday he had no choice but to drag his latest set of formal robes out of the wardrobe and pull them on, although it didn't stop him feeling very put upon.  At least, he told himself, he would see Ron at church.

Being a wizard Christian was mostly a pureblood thing, he had long ago noted.  The _Malfoys_ were Omnis Arcanum Christians, which said a great deal in Harry's opinion, although as far as they were concerned he was sure it was all as fake and pretentious as his Muggle aunt's self-righteous Protestantism. 

He also wondered darkly, as he dragged a comb through his hair, what the priest at the Church of the Holy Bones thought of Remus's lycanthropy, and, more to the point, what he thought of Sirius and Remus's 'marriage'.  Harry sourly decided that Sirius's money and name must smooth over many little difficulties, conveniently forgetting that he had never seen any evidence so far of those commodities making much difference to Lupin's situation.

Giving his robes a final, grumpy tug, he walked slowly down the stairs to join his godparents – and stopped short at the head of the landing, where he could see over the banister rail without being seen.  Remus and Sirius were standing just inside the sitting room doorway, heads bent towards each other as Sirius examined the lapel of Remus's robe.

One of the things that had puzzled Harry ever since he'd found out about the pair of them being together was how, after living with them for over three years, he could not have noticed that they were a couple.  He had come to the conclusion that it was because they didn't act at all like a couple – or not as he expected a couple to act, at any rate.  They were not demonstrative.  There were no public acts of affection.  Their relationship seemed largely friendly and jokey to Harry, not loverlike.

Sirius finished whatever he was doing and smoothed the fold of chocolate brown cloth with his fingertips.  Remus, Harry noticed, was smiling at him – not his usual tolerant smile, but one of fond good-humour.

"Have you quite finished?" he asked, and the tone was affectionate too.

"Yes, thank you," Sirius replied loftily, and he suddenly grinned … and stooped to kiss his partner lingeringly.

Harry took a silent step back into the shadows for a moment, annoyed to realise that he was blushing.  He clearly hadn't been meant to see that, or they would have done something like it in front of him before now.

"Harry!  Come on – there's nowhere you can hide!" Sirius called suddenly, clearly in an excellent humour.

Harry snorted irritably, for this was a reference to the one occasion he'd tried to use his father's Invisibility Cloak to get out of going to church.  It turned out that Sirius was quite familiar with that trick and had some way of tracing the cloak when it was in use.

He stumped down the stairs, resigned to his fate.  Annoyance drove away any lingering embarrassment, making it possible for him to look the two men in the eyes as he joined them in the living room.  Sirius was just taking three family prayer-books out of a glass fronted bookcase.  One didn't Floo or Apparate to the Church of the Holy Bones; all members of the congregation had prayer-books that doubled as portkeys and were pre-keyed for all the major services.  The only downside of using Sirius's family prayer-books was that one of his autocratic ancestors had adjusted the timing of the portkeys so that they invariably transported you to the church just moments before the service started – fashionably late.

"Cheer up!" Lupin remarked to Harry as the teenager sullenly took his prayer-book.  "I hear there's a new curate."

"Whoopee," Harry mumbled.

"Now, now …."

"Is it even safe for me to go to church after last week?" he demanded.

"Oh yes," Sirius replied, amused.  "Holy Bones is part of the Black Estate.  Permitting heretics and other undesirables to roam loose on our hallowed soil would be most unacceptable."

 _"Heretics?"_   Harry let out a sour laugh.  "I must remember to tell Voldemort that the next time I see him."

"Could we have this morbid conversation later, please?" Lupin asked.

They all waited, holding their prayer-books firmly.  And waited.  Finally Sirius sighed and pulled out his pocket watch.

"We really have to do something about these portkeys," Lupin told him.  "I never know where to look, turning up after everyone else is in their pews."

"That's why my great-grandmother did it," Sirius pointed out dryly, closing the watch again with a snap.  "We've still got couple of minutes to go, I think.  So, Harry, what have you got against going to church?"

Harry glowered at him.  "Apart from not believing in God?  That church is _creepy_ , Sirius."

Before either man could answer this accusation, the portkeys swept them all away.

They landed abruptly just in front of the church door … much to the apparent relief of the elderly priest, who was standing just inside the portico in his white and gold Easter vestments and clearly trying to keep out of a sharp breeze.

Harry had to admit that whatever else he felt about Sirius, his godfather certainly looked the part of lord of the manor whenever he chose to play it.  The midnight-blue and silver robes, coupled with a naturally upright bearing, gave him just the right amount of grandeur without the offensive arrogance of men like Lucius Malfoy. 

Certainly none of the Malfoys would ever be caught dropping to one knee in front of the parish priest and kissing his ring.

Harry didn't do the ring-kissing thing.  Much as he might try to suppress it, there was a critical little Aunt Petunia voice at the back of his mind that whispered _High Church!_ in scandalised accents whenever he saw Sirius and Remus performing this age-old ritual of respect.  Fortunately, Father Ignatius didn't seem to expect it of him, but clasped his hand cordially with cold, fragile fingers instead.

Father Ignatius was a very old, very stooped little wizard with half-moon spectacles and a white beard that nearly reached the floor.  When Harry had first learned that wizards could be Christians too, he'd had a vision of something like a Church of England vicar, complete with black shirt and trousers and white dog-collar, atop a broomstick.  The reality was vastly different.  If anything, the Omnis Arcanum priests resembled the priests at the Greek Orthodox Church Harry had passed occasionally on the way to the shops in Little Whinging during his childhood.

The comparison wasn't far adrift.  According to Lupin, there were elements of Eastern Orthodoxy in the Omnis Arcanum liturgy, along with elements from the Celtic Church and a number of other sources.  While there was an English translation of the Omnis Arcanum Bible (Lupin said there were translations dating back to the Eleventh Century in the British Wizard Library's archives in Diagon Alley), in church the scriptures were always read in the original Greek and Latin.  Which went a long way to explaining both Harry's boredom during services and the length of time it was taking him to complete the confirmation classes; he'd picked up enough Latin to understand unfamiliar spells and even whole sentences, but Greek was a closed book to him.

Sirius and Remus were being introduced to the new curate now.  No knee-bending for him; he wasn't high enough up the hierarchy to warrant it, so he got a cordial handshake similar to the one his superior bestowed upon Harry.  It was all very _nice_ and _proper_ and _formal_ , and very English in a not-very-English way.  Harry wondered what his Muggle grandparents had made of it all at his parents' wedding.  This, of course, was the church where they had been married.

The church itself looked like someone had dropped it out of an illustration of Middle Earth.  It was built in the centre of a tiny clearing in a wood, but was surrounded by huge ancient oaks and looked like it had somehow popped up in the middle of a clump of them.  Two gnarled trunks formed the door-posts to an entrance that was so low that only Harry and Father Ignatius could walk through it without stooping.  The door-posts had been carved at some point, into a mass of oak leaves and acorns out of which peered the occasional Green Man.  The roof was tiled and high at the ridge line, but so low at the gables that in places it was barely two feet from the ground; at intervals it was interrupted by high arched, gabled windows filled with moving stained glass images.  Predictably, the inside of the church was always dark, although enough candles were lit that readings could be made in comfort.  Nevertheless, Harry was of the opinion that nothing could make the inside of the church cosy.

He had good reason to feel that way.  The Church of the Holy Bones wasn't so named without reason.

The formal greetings over (Harry resisting the urge to glower at the friendly smile and hearty handshake of the new curate, Father Marius), the group went inside the church, the two priests leading the way and Harry bringing up the rear with Remus.

As the familiar smell of sweet incense hit his nose, Harry felt himself go cold.

The church was full of human bones.

The ceiling, high up amongst the carved wooden rafters, was lined with bones woven into cunning patterns that drew the eye to the grinning skulls that formed the central motifs.  The candelabras that lit the body of the church were made of bones, long spinal vertebrae manipulated into sinuous shapes.  Children's skulls topped the posts at the head of each elaborately carved wooden pew, each lit by a beeswax candle inside it; adult skull lamps illuminated the pulpit, the lectern and the corners of the altar.  The alter itself was carved out of white stone, but the decorations were made from long arm and leg bones, with the finer details picked out in finger and toe bones.

Harry always expected it to smell unpleasant in the church, but the bones were dry and ancient and the only smells were of incense and beeswax.  Lupin had long ago explained the story behind the church; it wasn't even an unusual phenomenon.  While it was the only wizard church in the British Isles to be decorated with bones, there were others around Europe - in Portugal, for instance - where bones of both monks and ordinary people had been rescued from threatened churchyards and used to ornament chapels.  The bones in the Church of the Holy Bones had been taken from a wizard graveyard after it had been badly damaged during the Goblin Rebellion.

Walking down the central aisle was another kind of discomfort.  The little church was packed with impatient worshippers, all watching the group make their way to the Black family pew at the front with varying degrees of reproach or criticism.  Harry felt himself go hot with embarrassment as usual, and it was little comfort to know that Remus felt exactly the same way.  Sirius, with several hundred years' of aristocratic attitude behind him, showed no signs of concern and he nodded amiably to acquaintances in the congregation as he passed them.

Then several mops of red hair caught Harry's eye and he felt a tingle of pleasure.  Mrs. Weasley might be giving them the evil eye, and beside her Percy Weasley was following her example and staring down his long nose at them in disapproval, but Arthur Weasley smiled amiably at the group and Ron rolled his eyes at Harry and pointed to his watch, grinning.  Harry grinned back at him and shuffled into the family pew between Sirius and Remus, trying to ignore the speculative stares of Fred and George Weasley … and, indeed, any number of other members of the congregation.

The attack on Diagon Alley was still hot news and undoubtedly the rubberneckers were wanting to get a look at the teenager whose very existence had prompted it.  Harry gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore the interested eyes on the back of his neck as the service started.  Fortunately, by the time Sirius stood up to give his reading (something from the Gospel of St. John) everyone seemed to have got over it.

Or perhaps it was just the soothing sound of Church Latin being correctly pronounced; Sirius did, after all, have a beautiful speaking voice – something to do with his mother ensuring he breathed properly as a child, according to Remus in an unusually irreverent moment.

 

*

 

Harry was able to meet Ron after the service - although only for a few moments and unfortunately under the watchful eyes of the rest of the Weasley family and both of Harry's godparents, not to mention a handful of other dawdling and interested parishioners.

"Thanks for the egg, mate," Ron said, turning slightly pink under the tolerant smile of Remus Lupin.  "Hedwig brought it this morning."

"I nearly forgot it," Harry muttered, a little pink himself.  He wished the twins would just disappear instead of making coy eyes at the two of them.  "Happy Easter."

"Yeah, you too.  Here – this is for you."  And Ron pulled a very small glass jar of preserves out of his pocket.  "You'll need to get Sirius to un-shrink it when you get home.  It's pickled cherries."

"Seriously?"  Harry was particularly partial to sour cherries, as Ron had discovered during the last Hogsmeade weekend.  "Brilliant!  Thanks, Ron."

"Better thank Mum as well," Ron muttered under his breath.  "She made them."

Ah.  Harry eyed Mrs. Weasley with trepidation, for she was watching them with a very forbidding expression.  His early training by the Dursleys held good, though, and when he approached her and thanked her politely he thought he detected just the tiniest hint of softening in her manner.  For that he was grateful; he hadn't forgotten that day at King's Cross Station when she had kindly helped him find Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and seeing her expression change to wary suspicion whenever she set eyes on him thereafter had given him an unpleasant twist in his gut.

He would have liked longer to speak to Ron, but unfortunately it wasn't to be.  They were just hurriedly discussing their return to school ("It's too risky on the train – Sirius is taking me on his bike, I think." "Yeah, Dad's booked two armchairs on the Knight Bus for us.") when a hand descended on Harry's shoulder and he turned to find a smiling Father Marius standing behind him.

Harry nearly groaned out loud.  He had been hoping that as it was Easter Sunday he could get out of confirmation classes for once. 

"You didn't think you were going to escape that easily, did you?" the curate joked.  "We have an appointment with my Bible, young man!"

Ron sniggered softly.  He, of course, had been confirmed years ago.  "I'll see you at school, mate!"

"Yeah, okay - "

Sirius intervened then.  "I'll be back in an hour to collect you, Harry," he said, a trace of a smirk lingering around his mouth.

Harry glowered over his shoulder at him as he was firmly led away to the Priests' Residence behind the church.

"You know, I keep telling people I really don't believe in God," he told the curate irritably.

"Not to worry," Father Marius told him, cheerfully remorseless.  "If you play your cards right, I'm sure He won't hold it against you."

 

*

 

Easter Monday was a messy sort of day largely taken up with repacking Harry's school trunk and ensuring that his robes were in a fit state to last him until the summer holiday.  He tidied up his holiday assignments which, by some miracle, had all been completed in spite of events, and hunted down a number of books that had managed to misplace themselves.

"You're going to need a new set of Quidditch robes next year," Lupin remarked in the late afternoon, as he neatly folded the freshly laundered green and silver garments. "You've grown an inch or two – I've put an adjustment charm on them for now."

"'Bout time I grew a bit," Harry muttered, stacking books in the bottom of the trunk.

"Are you taking this with you?" Sirius asked, holding up the book he'd bought Harry the other day and raising a brow.

"Hm."  It had certainly made interesting reading for the last couple of nights, and Harry wanted to show it to Ron at a seasonable moment.  "Yes, I think so."

"In that case, I'd better Disguise it for you," Sirius decided.  "You don't need your dorm-mates  finding it and passing it around."

Harry decided not to mention some of the creative charms he regularly used on his belongings to ensure the likes of Malfoy and his cronies wouldn't tamper with them.  Even with Malfoy gone, there was still Crabbe and Goyle to deal with and Theodore Nott, though generally a fence-sitter, was one of Pansy Parkinson's court and consequently not to be trusted.  Not that any of his House were entirely to be trusted, although Blaise Zabini at least came from an Italian wizard family and had been brought up with odd notions of honour and dignity, and consequently would never touch anyone else's possessions without express permission. 

Sirius tapped the book with his wand and it turned into a rather scruffy-looking copy of _The Encyclopaedia of Alchemical Attributes._  

"Does anyone study Alchemy anymore?" Harry asked, glancing at the title.

"Only idiots," Lupin replied, passing him a newly scoured cauldron to be packed. 

"Idiots with too much money and time on their hands," Sirius amended.  "Fool's errand, trying to change anything into gold.  If it could be done, the goblins would have done it centuries ago."

"So why would I be lugging around a book that advertises me as an idiot?" Harry objected.

The two men looked at him.

"Good point," Sirius admitted, and he changed the book to a copy of _Fujimo's Enchanted Origami For Beginners_.  "Anyone looking at it now will just think you've taken up a new hobby."

"And they wouldn't be far wrong," Lupin added, and he chuckled at Harry's expression.  "Where are all your shoes?  You can probably leave one of these winter cloaks, the weather's changing and you won't need both.  Here, pack these shirts …."

"Got your broom?" Sirius asked, tucking a parcel of Easter chocolate into the cauldron along with a handful of quills, a new bottle of ink and most of the jar of cherries Ron had given Harry.

"I was going to pack that last," Harry said, thinking that this was a weird domestic scene to be involved in, with the pair of them fussing over his books and underwear.  Maybe it would do them both good if Sirius _did_ go ahead and procreate ….  He managed to stop himself actually saying it though.

Besides, although he would never admit it even to himself, Harry quite liked being the centre of their attention.  No one had ever fussed over him like this before, and having a baby in the house would be the worst possible competition.

"That seems to be everything," Lupin said, interrupting his train of thought.  "I don't think we've forgotten anything … well, you can send Hedwig if we have."

Harry looked around his room, suddenly feeling a bit deflated.  After all the excitement of the past couple of weeks, it felt odd to be packing up to go back to school.  Which was odd in itself; normally he was keen to get out of the house.

"Let's get some dinner and an early night," Sirius suggested.  "We've got a long flight tomorrow."

 

*

 

"Keep writing to us."

"Okay."

"If you have any problems, just let me know."

"Yeah, I know, Sirius."

"If you need a place to meet Ron, there's this room behind - "

"I _know_ , Sirius!"

"Well, don't get caught, okay?  It was embarrassing enough facing McGonagall about my own high-jinks - and she might not survive a second encounter."

Harry snorted.  "Shouldn't you be worrying about what Snape'll say?"

Sirius flashed him a wicked grin.  "With any luck it'll carry him off."

Harry grinned back. 

"Come here a minute - "  Sirius tugged Harry into a hug.  "All things being equal, Remus and I will see you in July, if not before."

"Am I coming home before I start these special lessons?"

"I don't know.  Dumbledore will let us know the arrangements well in advance, though, so don't worry about it."

Harry hesitated, then added, "Let me know if anything happens about that new werewolf law, okay?"

"Don't worry about that either," Sirius said a little gruffly.  "Most likely it won't come to anything."  There was a pause.  "But yes, I'll let you know if anything _does_ happen."

"Thanks."  Harry reluctantly pulled back.  "I'd better get my stuff down to the dorm."

"Go on then."

But Harry waited while his godfather mounted his bike again and waved him off, watching until he was out of sight.  Then he turned and began to drag his trunk down the stairs.

It was time to find out what the rest of the school had been up to while he was away.

**\- The End -**


End file.
